The Congolese government finally confirmed the death of President Laurent Kabila yesterday as its citizens timidly ventured on to the streets of the capital, Kinshasa, for the first time since Tuesday's shooting.
"Laurent Kabila died yesterday [Wednesday] at 5 p.m. in Harare," a Congolese diplomat in London told the BBC.
African and United Nations leaders gathered for a regional summit in Cameroon observed a minute's silence in his honour.
President Kabila's body will be flown to Kinshasa on Sunday, and there will be a burial on Tuesday, government sources said.
An uneasy calm has settled over Kinshasa, as some people returned to work, but markets were quiet.
Five-star hotels pulled iron shutters over their doors.
Long queues formed outside Internet cafes, where city dwellers sought confirmation of their president's death on western websites and sent e-mails to relatives abroad.
Residents of middle-class suburbs remained locked in their houses, fearing a spate of army looting as in past crises.
President Kabila was shot dead by his own bodyguard on Tuesday in circumstances surrounded by more mystery than clarity.
Some diplomatic sources in Kinshasa have suggested that a senior army officer, Col Dieudonne Kayembe, started the shoot-out after Mr Kabila tried to have him arrested.
If the report is true, it may be explained by the immense military pressure the Congolese government has come under in recent months. Ugandan- and Rwandan-backed rebels fighting to topple Mr Kabila have made significant gains, capturing the strategic town of Pweto just before Christmas.
Mr Kabila's son, Maj Gen Joseph Kabila, has assumed control of the government and was shown greeting foreign diplomats on state television yesterday.
Maj Gen Kabila does not have a distinguished military record - he was the commander of Pweto before it fell - and will be keen to rally support from Zimbabwe and Angola, the government's staunchest foreign supporters in the three-year war.
About 12,000 Zimbabwean troops are fighting alongside the Congolese army while oil-rich Angola can offer support in terms of heavy firepower, including fighter jets and helicopter gunships.
After Tuesday's shooting Mr Kabila was flown to Harare, although some reports suggest he was dead on arrival.
His son, however, will not be able to rely so heavily on President Robert Mugabe's government, which has admitted it can no longer afford a military adventure that has cost $200 million so far.
Instead Maj Gen Kabila will be turning to President Eduardo dos Santos of Angola.
Maj Gen Kabila desperately needs Angolan military strength to prop up his own badly equipped and demoralised troops, and so Angola is thought to wield great influence in Kinshasa at the moment.
For their part, the rebels said they would listen to peace proposals but would continue to prosecute the war.
"Kabila is gone, but the Kabila system is still in place so our struggle doesn't stop," a spokesman for the Rwandan-backed Congolese Rally for Democracy said yesterday.