Sun 26 December 2021:
Desmond Tutu, a retired archbishop and anti-apartheid icon from South Africa, has died at the age of 90.
Tutu, a Nobel Laureate and a veteran of South Africa’s struggle against white minority rule, passed away on Sunday.
“The passing of Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu is another chapter of bereavement in our nation’s farewell to a generation of outstanding South Africans who have bequeathed us a liberated South Africa,” President Cyril Ramaphosa said on Sunday.
He “distinguished himself as a non-sectarian, inclusive champion of universal human rights”, Ramaphosa added.
The presidency gave no details on the cause of death.
Tutu was a longtime friend of Nelson Mandela, and the two shared a home on Vilakazi Street in Soweto, South Africa, which is the only street in the world to have hosted two Nobel Peace Prize winners.
Tutu was diagnosed with prostate cancer in the late 1990s and has been hospitalized several times in recent years for infections related to his treatment.
“Ultimately, at the age of 90, he died peacefully at the Oasis Frail Care Centre in Cape Town this morning,” Dr Ramphela Mamphele, acting chairperson of the Archbishop Desmond Tutu IP Trust and Co-ordinator of the Office of the Archbishop, said in a statement on behalf of the Tutu family.
Tutu is widely regarded as South Africa’s moral conscience and as the great reconciler of a country torn apart by decades of racist politics.
He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984 for his nonviolent resistance to apartheid.
He witnessed the end of that regime a decade later and chaired the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which was established to uncover atrocities committed during the segregation era.
According to the local government, Tutu led numerous marches and campaigns to end apartheid from St George’s front steps, and as a result, it became known as the “People’s Cathedral” and a powerful symbol of democracy.
SOURCE: INDEPENDENT PRESS AND NEWS AGENCIES
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