(Updates with new quotes)
JOHANNESBURG, December 26 (Reuters) – Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Nobel Peace Laureate and anti-apartheid veteran in South Africa, has died at the age of 90, the presidency announced on Sunday.
In 1984, Tutu was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his nonviolent opposition to apartheid. A decade later, he chaired the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, created after the abolition in 1991 of apartheid, in order to shed light on the crimes committed by this racist regime, dominated by the white minority.
Since then, he had never ceased to fight against injustices and corruption, regretting the end of his life that his dream of a “rainbow nation” had not yet been realized.
Known for his outspokenness, the Anglican Archbishop was one of the last guardians of the country after the death of former President Nelson Mandela in 2013.
Desmond Tutu was diagnosed with prostate cancer in the late 1990s. He had been hospitalized several times in recent years to treat infections linked to his cancer treatment.
“The death of the well-deserved Archbishop Desmond Tutu is another chapter of mourning in our nation’s farewell to a generation of exceptional South Africans who bequeathed us a free South Africa,” said South African President Cyril Ramaphosa .
“Desmond Tutu was a patriot without a peer.”
The presidency gave no details on the cause of the death.
“Finally, at the age of 90, he dyed peacefully at the Oasis Frail Care Center Cape Town this morning,” said Ramphela Mamphele, acting chair of Archbishop Desmond Tutu IP Trust and office coordinator of the Archbishop, speaking on behalf of the Tutu family. (Nqobile Dludla report, French version Jean-Michel Blot)