South Africa’s Archbishop Desmond Tutu has died. He was 90 years old.
The Nobel Peace Prize laureate who helped end apartheid in South Africa died in the early hours of today Sunday, December 26.
A contemporary anti-apartheid icon Nelson Mandela was one of the driving forces behind the movement to end the policy of racial segregation and discrimination enforced by the white minority government against the black majority in South Africa from 1948 until 1991.
He was awarded the Nobel prize in 1984 for his role in the struggle to abolish the apartheid system.
Tutu was diagnosed with prostate cancer in the late 1990s and recent years he was hospitalized on several occasions to treat infections associated with 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 coordinator of the Office of the Archbishop, said in a statement on behalf of the Tutu family.
May his soul rest in peace, Amen.