Details surrounding his death are still sketchy but Tsvangirai was suffering from colon cancer and had previously been treated at a hospital in South Africa.
He was in a hospital abroad when former President Robert Mugabe gave up power. Tsvangirai had to cut short his trip to witness the transition in his country.
From being a staunch supporter of Mugabe, the deceased became a strong opponent.
Tsvangirai was born in 1952 in the village of Buhera, about 200-kilometres south of the capital Harare.
As a young man, he worked in the mines, rising from plant operator to plant supervisor. He joined Mugabe’s Zanu-PF party at the time of Zimbabwe’s independence in 1980.