South Africa’s Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Nobel Peace Prize laureate and anti-apartheid veteran, has died aged 90, the president’s office has said.
Archbishop Tutu was widely regarded as “South Africa’s moral conscience” because of his staunch opposition to the apartheid regime. Famously saying that “if you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor.”
President Cyril Ramaphosa said his passing was “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 described Archbishop Tutu as a “patriot without equal; a leader of principle and pragmatism who gave meaning to the biblical insight that faith without works is dead.”
Renowned for his cheerful disposition, Archbishop Tutu nevertheless was unafraid of using his platform to speak harsh truths, once saying in 2007: “I wish I could shut up. I can’t”.
