Nobel Peace Prize-winning Archbishop Desmond Tutu dies aged 90

South Africa's President Cyril Ramaphosa announced his death in a statement to the media early Sunday.

“President Ramaphosa expresses his heartfelt condolences to MAM Leah Tutu, the Tutu family, the board and staff of the Desmond and Leah Tutu Legacy Foundation, the Elders and Nobel Laureate Group, and the friends, comrades and associates nationally and globally of the iconic spiritual leader, anti-apartheid activist and global human rights campaigner.”

"Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu's passing is another chapter of bereavement in our nation's farewell to a generation of outstanding South Africans who have bequeathed us a liberated SA," Ramaphosa continued.

“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."

Tutu was diagnosed with prostate cancer in the late 1990s, and he has been hospitalized several times in the last few years for infections related to his cancer treatment.

Tutu was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984 for his nonviolent resistance to apartheid.

He saw the regime come to an end a decade later, and he chaired a Truth and Reconciliation Commission tasked with uncovering atrocities committed during those dark days.