Archbishop Desmond Tutu, icon of South Africa’s anti-apartheid struggle, dies

South African Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu, Nobel Peace Prize In 1984 for his activism against the apartheid racist segregation regime, he died this Sunday at the age of 90, according to official sources.

In a statement issued by the South African government, the country’s president, Cyril Ramaphosa, confirmed the death and sent his condolences to the Tutu family.

“The death of Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu is another chapter of loss in our nation’s farewell to a generation of prominent South Africans who bequeathed us a South Africa liberated“, highlights the president in the text.

The president has described Tutu as a “peerless patriot“and a” man of extraordinary intellect “who maintained his integrity in the fight against the” forces of apartheid. “

Even in a democracy, Ramaphosa has stressed, Tutu maintained the “vigor” and “vigilance” of the leadership to demand responsibilities to institutions.

Humans right’s defender

Awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984 For his fight against the brutal racist oppression of apartheid, Tutu is considered one of the key figures in contemporary South African history.

His career has been marked by a constant Defense of human rights, something that led him to distance himself on numerous occasions from the ecclesiastical hierarchy to openly defend positions such as the rights of the homosexuals o la euthanasia. He was also actively involved in campaigns against the page, the tuberculosis, the poverty, the racism and the sexism.

The South African Archbishop received in 2014 the Catalonia International Award. The jury highlighted “his vigorous and constant fight for the social justice and the improvement of the conditions of oppressed, from an integrity, a courage and exceptional capacity “

Prostate cancer

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In recent years it had remained away from public life due to his advanced age and years of health problems, including prostate cancer.

His last public appearance had been in brief video images broadcast on the day of his 90th birthday (last October 7), an anniversary that its foundation celebrated with a virtual conference in which, among others, the maximum Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, the Mozambican activist and widow of Nelson Mandela Graça Machel and the former Irish president participated Mary Robinson.