Archbishop Desmond Tutu, the Nobel Peace prize laureate who helped end apartheid in South Africa, has died aged 90.
President Cyril Ramaphosa announced the passing of the Nobel Peace Prize laureate and anti-apartheid veteran on Sunday December 26 in an emotional message.
“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.
Tutu was born October 7, 1931 in Klerksdorp, South Africa.
In 1984, he received the Nobel Prize for Peace for his role in the opposition to apartheid in South Africa.
In 1985, at the height of the township rebellions in South Africa, Tutu was installed as Johannesburg’s first Black Anglican bishop.
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Also, in 1986 he was elected the first Black archbishop of Cape Town, thus becoming the primate of South Africa’s 1.6 million-member Anglican Church.
In 1995 South African Pres. Nelson Mandela appointed Tutu head of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which investigated allegations of human rights abuses during the apartheid era.
In addition to the Nobel Prize, Tutu received numerous honours, including the U.S. Presidential Medal of Freedom (2009), an award from the Mo Ibrahim Foundation that recognized his lifelong commitment to “speaking truth to power” (2012), and the Templeton Prize (2013).