South Africa’s anti-apartheid icon and Nobel laureate, Desmond Tutu, dies at 90

South Africa – South Africa’s anti-apartheid icon, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who won the Nobel Peace Prize for fighting racial discrimination in the country, died on Sunday. He was 90 years old. President Cyril Ramaphosa announced the news in Cape Town in the early hours of Sunday.

He previously survived tuberculosis. He had also undergone surgery for prostate cancer in 1997. He was hospitalised several times in recent years for various ailments in South Africa.

President Cyril Ramaphosa on Archbishop Desmond Tutu

President Cyril Ramaphosa said, “Another chapter of bereavement in our nation’s farewell to a generation of outstanding South Africans who have bequeathed us a liberated South Africa.”  Desmond Tutu was one of the country’s best-known figures in South Africa and in abroad countries. The president also praised Desmond Tutu for his role in the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Desmond Tutu was often driven to tears in the Truth and Reconciliation Commission because victims of racial discrimination shared their inhumane treatment at the hands of apartheid-ear security forces.

 Desmond Tutu fought against racial discrimination

In 1995, Nelson Mandela had appointed Desmond Tutu to lead the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. He was one of the driving forces behind the movement to end the policy of racial segregation and discrimination in the country. The discrimination was started by the white minority government against the black majority in South Africa from 1948 to 1991. Black people were forced to live separately from white people. Separate educational standards were also established for nonwhites. Many laws were also passed to legalize and institutionalize the apartheid system in the country. Desmond Tutu was awarded the Nobel prize in 1984 for his role in the struggle to abolish the apartheid system in the country.

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According to the BBC, the Nelson Mandela Foundation was among those paying tributes to Desmond Tutu. The foundation said, “Tutu’s contributions to struggles against injustice are matched only by the depth of his thinking about the making of liberatory futures for human societies.”