Cape Town — Archbishop Desmond Tutu, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate and veteran of South Africa’s struggle against apartheid who was revered as his nation’s conscience by both Black and white, died on Sunday aged 90.
Tutu died “peacefully” on Sunday morning in a Cape Town nursing home, a representative of his Archbishop Desmond Tutu IP Trust said.
He was diagnosed with prostate cancer in the late 1990s and was later hospitalised several times to treat infections associated with treatment for it.
After apartheid ended, he called the Black political elite to account with as much feistiness as he had the Afrikaners, but his enduring spirit of reconciliation in a divided nation always shone through, and tributes to him poured in from around the world on Sunday.
“Archbishop Desmond Tutu was a mentor, a friend and a moral compass for me and so many others,” former U.S. President Barack Obama said. “He never lost his impish sense of humour and willingness to find humanity in his adversaries.”
One of Obama’s predecessors, Bill Clinton, called Tutu’s life “a gift” while South African President Cyril Ramaphosa described him as “a patriot without equal.”