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Desmond Tutu: Tributes pour in after death of South African anti-apartheid leader

Politicians, civil rights leaders, religious leaders and others took to social media to mourn the passing Sunday of South African anti-apartheid leader and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu.

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Tutu died in Cape Town, according to a statement issued by President Cyril Ramaphosa. He was 90.

Ramaphosa remembered Tutu as “a patriot without equal; a leader of principle and pragmatism who gave meaning to the biblical insight that faith without works is dead.”

>> Related: South Africa’s Archbishop Desmond Tutu dead at 90

“We pray that Archbishop Tutu’s soul will rest in peace but that his spirit will stand sentry over the future of our nation,” he wrote in a post on Twitter.

President Joe Biden and his family shared condolences for Tutu’s family and the people of South Africa in a statement released Sunday.

“Born to a school teacher and a laundress and into poverty and entrenched racial segregation, Desmond Tutu followed his spiritual calling to create a better, freer and more equal world,” the president and first lady said in the statement. “His legacy transcends borders and will echo throughout the ages.”

In a letter written to Tutu’s daughter, Rev. Mpho Tutu, the Dalai Lama shared his condolences, remembering his “enduring friendship” with the civil rights leader.

“Archbishop Desmond Tutu was entirely dedicated to serving his brothers and sisters for the greater common good,” the Dalai Lama wrote. “He was a true humanitarian and a committed advocate of human rights. … With his passing away, we have lost a great man, who lived a truly meaningful life.”

Bernice King, the daughter of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., remembered Tutu as a “global sage … and powerful pilgrim on Earth.”

“A great, influential elder is now an eternal, witnessing ancestor,” she wrote. “And we are better because he was here.”

President Barack Obama called Tutu “a mentor, a friend and a moral compass for me and so many others.”

“A universal spirit, Archbishop Tutu was grounded in the struggle for liberation and justice in his own country, but also concerned with injustice everywhere,” Obama wrote in a Facebook post. “He never lost his impish sense of humor and willingness to find humanity in his adversaries, and Michelle and I will miss him dearly.”

Archbishop Desmond Tutu was a mentor, a friend, and a moral compass for me and so many others. A universal spirit,...

Posted by Barack Obama on Sunday, December 26, 2021

President Bill Clinton shared prayers for Tutu’s family from him and his wife, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, in a statement published Sunday.

“Archbishop Desmond Tutu’s life was a gift,” he said in the statement. “Blessed with brilliance and eloquence, steady determination and good humor, and an unshakeable faith in the inherent decency of all people, Archbishop Tutu fully embodied the spirit of Ubuntu: ‘I am because you are.’”

Queen Elizabeth II said Sunday that she and the entire British royal family were “deeply saddened by the news of the death of Archbishop Desmond Tutu, a man who tirelessly championed human rights in South Africa and across the world.”

“I remember with fondness my meetings with him and his great warmth and humor,” she said in a statement released by officials.