By Iliya Kure
Renown South Africa’s Archbishop, Desmond Tutu, who contributed to end apartheid in the country has died Sunday morning in Cape Town at the age of 90 years.
Tutu was anti-apartheid fighter in the likes of Nelson Mandela, and will be remembered as one of the people that brought an end to the policy of racial discrimination used by apartheid government against black majority in the country between 1948 and 1991.
His death comes few weeks after that of South Africa’s last apartheid-era president, FW de Clerk, who died at the age of 85.
In a statement 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 SA.
“Desmond Tutu was a patriot without equal; a leader of principle and pragmatism who gave meaning to the biblical insight that faith without works is dead.
“A man of extraordinary intellect, integrity and invincibility against the forces of apartheid, he was also tender and vulnerable in his compassion for those who had suffered oppression, injustice and violence under apartheid, and oppressed and downtrodden people around the world.”
He was awarded Nobel prize in 1984, “for his role as a unifying leader figure in the non-violent campaign to resolve the problem of apartheid in South Africa,” according to the awarding organisation.