South African Anglican Archbishop; Desmond Tutu, died Sunday at the age of 90, President Cyril Ramaphosa announced.

Tutu; an icon of the fight against apartheid and Nobel Peace Prize winner, is popularly known in Africa and the world. In 1984, he received the Nobel Peace Prize “for his role as a unifying leader figure in the non-violent campaign to resolve the problem of apartheid in South Africa.”

The president in a statement expressed “on behalf of all South Africans, his deep sadness following the death, this Sunday” of this essential figure in South African history.

Born on October 7, 1931, in Klerksdorp, South Africa, he became ordained as an Anglican priest in 1960.

In 1985, Tutu became Bishop of Johannesburg and in 1986 the Archbishop of Cape Town, the most senior position in southern Africa’s Anglican hierarchy.

Nelson Mandela, leader of the coalition government that resulted from the 1994 general election, selected Tutu to chair the Truth and Reconciliation Commission to investigate abuses during the apartheid era.

Tutu was a fierce critic of Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians, comparing it to the apartheid regime in South Africa and endorsing the BDS movement to boycott the Jewish state, which the ADL calls antisemitic.

In 2014, Tutu said that the same issues that brought the world to focus on ending apartheid in South Africa animate supporters of the movement to divest from Israel that is “trying to end Israel’s decades-long occupation of Palestinian territory and the unfair and prejudicial treatment of the Palestinian people by the Israeli government ruling over them.”

Africa has lost a rare gem! May his soul rest in peace.