Archbishop Desmond Tutu, the Nobel Peace prize laureate who helped end apartheid in South Africa, has died aged 90.
Desmond Tutu coined and popularised the term “Rainbow Nation” to describe South Africa when Nelson Mandela became the country’s first black president.
President Cyril Ramaphosa said the churchman’s death marked “another chapter of bereavement in our nation’s farewell to a generation of outstanding South Africans”.
He said Archbishop Tutu had helped bequeath “a liberated South Africa”.
Tutu was one of the country’s best known figures at home and abroad.
South African anti-apartheid icon Desmond Tutu, described as the country’s moral compass, died on Sunday aged 90, President Cyril Ramaphosa said.
“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,” he said in a statement.
A tireless activist, he won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984 for combatting white minority rule in his country.
Famously outspoken, even after the fall of the racist apartheid regime, Tutu never shied away from confronting South Africa’s shortcomings or injustices.
It was Tutu who coined and popularised the term “Rainbow Nation” to describe South Africa when Nelson Mandela became the country’s first black president.
A contemporary of anti-apartheid icon Nelson Mandela, he was 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.
