South Africa: Archbishop Tutu passes away aged 90; President mourns anti-apartheid icon

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa announced on December 26 that South Africa's Nobel Peace Prize-winning crusader for racial justice and LGBT rights, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, has died at the age of 90. Tutu was diagnosed with prostate cancer in the late 1990s and has been hospitalised multiple times in subsequent years for infections related to his cancer treatment.

President Ramaphosa issued a statement on the official website of the President of South Africa, stating that Archbishop Tutu, at the age of 90, died peacefully this morning at the Oasis Frail Care Centre in Cape Town and that the departure of Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu is another chapter in their nation's farewell to a generation of remarkable South Africans who have left behind a liberated South Africa. Tutu was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984 for his nonviolent struggle against apartheid.

Tutu was an iconic spiritual leader

President Ramaphosa said in the statement that Tutu was an iconic spiritual leader, anti-apartheid activist, and global human rights champion who was regarded as a patriot without parallel. The President also stated that he was a man of exceptional intelligence, integrity and invincibility against apartheid forces and he was also soft and vulnerable in his compassion for individuals who had suffered oppression, injustice and violence, as well as oppressed and downtrodden people around the world.

Ramaphosa continued by stating that Desmond Tutu survived the disease, the brutality of apartheid security forces, and the intransigence of successive apartheid regimes during his richly inspiring yet arduous life. 

He also said that Tutu remained faithful to his convictions and retained his vigour and vigilance as he held leadership and the burgeoning institutions of the democracy to account in his distinctive, unavoidable and always strengthening manner. Tutu's death comes just a month after the death of South Africa's final apartheid-era president, FW de Clerk, who died at the age of 85.

The country mourns alongside Mam Leah Tutu

The President concluded the statement by saying that on the death of the Nobel Prize winner, the country mourns alongside Mam Leah Tutu, the Archbishop's wife, who has made a huge contribution to the freedom and the growth of South African democracy in her own right.

He said, "We pray that Archbishop Tutu’s soul will rest in peace but that his spirit will stand sentry over the future of our nation."

Image: AP