South African anti-apartheid icon Archbishop Desmond Tutu, has died on Sunday, 26th December 2021 at the age of 90.
The president of the country, Cyril Ramaphosa announced in a statement. He 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 South Africa”.
Tutu was was one of the driving forces behind the movement to end the policy of racial segregation and discrimination enforced by the white minority government against the black majority in South Africa from 1948 until 1991.
He coined and popularised the term “Rainbow Nation” to describe South Africa when Nelson Mandela became the country’s first black president.
He was awarded the Nobel prize in 1984 for his role in the struggle to abolish the apartheid system.
Tutu’s death comes just weeks after that of South Africa’s last apartheid-era president, FW de Clerk, who died at the age of 85.