Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Nobel Peace Prize laureate and veteran of South Africa’s struggle against white minority rule, has died aged 90, the presidency said 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.
He was an outspoken critic of the country’s previous brutal system of oppression against the country’s Black majority.
He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984 for his campaign of non-violent opposition to South Africa’s white minority rule.
It said: “He wanted the world to know that he had prostate cancer, and that the sooner it is detected the better the chance of managing it.”
The statement added: “Ultimately, at the age of 90, he died peacefully at the Oasis Frail Care Centre in Cape Town this morning.
“Courageous, gracious, and concerned for the welfare of others to the very end.
“As Mrs Tutu says, although he was not physically imposing, he had the inner strength of a lion.”
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