(NEW MEXICO) — More than 20 people became trapped overnight in a tram car on the Sandia Peak Tramway in Albuquerque, New Mexico, as rescue efforts are underway for one remaining employee, authorities said.
The tramway cars had been stuck since 2 a.m. due to icy conditions in the area, the Bernalillo County Sheriff’s Office said Saturday.
Twenty people stranded in one of the tramway’s two cars were evacuated via helicopter two to four at a time, authorities said. The sheriff’s office livestreamed the rescue operation for over an hour.
Shortly after 1 p.m. local time, Bernalillo County fire officials updated that all 20 passengers in the car had been rescued.
An employee still remains in the second tram car, as responders are “actively working” on a rescue plan, the fire department said.
Metro Air Support, the Bernalillo County sheriff’s office and fire department, New Mexico State Police, New Mexico Search and Rescue Teams are involved in the rescue efforts.
Sandia Peak Tramway general manager Michael Donavan told ABC Albuquerque affiliate KOAT earlier Saturday that all passengers were in good condition and had water and blankets on board the tram car.
The Sandia Peak Tramway is closed Saturday due to high winds, the company said.
The tram ride typically takes 15 minutes to the peak of the Sandia Mountains, and another 15 minutes back to the lower terminal.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
ABC News’ Joshua Hoyos contributed to this report.
(NEW MEXICO) — Twenty-one people have been rescued after becoming trapped overnight in tram cars on the Sandia Peak Tramway in Albuquerque, New Mexico, authorities said.
The tramway cars had been stuck since 2 a.m. due to icy conditions in the area, the Bernalillo County Sheriff’s Office said Saturday.
Twenty people stranded in one of the tramway’s two cars were evacuated via helicopter two to four at a time, authorities said. The sheriff’s office livestreamed the rescue operation for over an hour.
Shortly after 1 p.m. local time, Bernalillo County fire officials updated that all 20 passengers in the car had been rescued.
An employee still remains in the second tram car, as responders are “actively working” on a rescue plan, the fire department said.
Metro Air Support, the Bernalillo County sheriff’s office and fire department, New Mexico State Police, New Mexico Search and Rescue Teams are involved in the rescue efforts.
Sandia Peak Tramway general manager Michael Donavan told ABC Albuquerque affiliate KOAT earlier Saturday that all passengers were in good condition and had water and blankets on board the tram car.
The Sandia Peak Tramway is closed Saturday due to high winds, the company said.
The tram ride typically takes 15 minutes to the peak of the Sandia Mountains, and another 15 minutes back to the lower terminal.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
ABC News’ Joshua Hoyos contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — President Joe Biden spoke with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday — their second conversation this month amid heightened fears of a full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
The call, which the Biden administration said comes at Putin’s request, was the latest effort to defuse those tensions diplomatically.
But tens of thousands of Russian troops remain near Ukraine’s borders, and bellicose rhetoric from Russian officials and state propaganda have Western officials on edge still.
The U.S. and European allies have threatened unprecedented economic penalties for Moscow if it attacks Ukraine, nearly eight years after its forces seized the Crimean Peninsula and sparked a war in Ukraine’s eastern provinces known as Donbas.
Sanctions and other penalties have not brought that conflict to an end, with approximately 14,000 people killed and Russian-led separatists still fighting Ukrainian forces. U.S. officials say it’s unclear if Putin has decided to attack again in an all-out invasion, but Biden has already made clear U.S. forces will not come to Kyiv’s aid on the battlefield.
Instead, the Biden administration is hoping deterrence and diplomacy will stop Putin. A senior administration official said they “cannot speak to why the Russian side has requested the call,” but added both leaders believe there is “genuine value in direct leader to leader engagement.”
“I think we are at a moment of crisis and have been for some weeks now given the Russian build-up and that it will take a high level of engagement to address this and to try to find a path of de-escalation,” the official told reporters Wednesday.
In addition to the leaders’ call, U.S. and Russian diplomats will meet on Jan. 10, the two sides confirmed Tuesday, to discuss stated security concerns on either side.
“Open lines of dialogue, open lines of diplomacy have the potential to be constructive as we seek to de-escalate the potential for conflict in and around Ukraine,” State Department spokesperson Ned Price said of the talks.
After those meetings, NATO will hold a meeting with Russia on Jan. 12, while the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, a key security forum that has deployed a war monitor in eastern Ukraine, will hold a session Jan. 13.
“The Biden administration continues to engage in extensive diplomacy with our European allies and partners, consulting and coordinating on a common approach in response to Russia’s military build-up on the border with Ukraine,” Emily Horne, Biden’s National Security Council spokesperson, said in a statement.
But some European allies have called for greater involvement. The European Union “must be involved in these negotiations,” its top diplomat, Josep Borrell, told the German newspaper Die Welt.
“It’s about us. This is not simply the case for two states, i.e. America and Russia, or NATO and Russia — even if Moscow imagines it,” he added in the interview, published Wednesday.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken has said repeatedly the U.S. will not negotiate any arrangement about European security without first consulting European allies — speaking again to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy Wednesday, just as the two spoke before Biden and Putin’s first call this month.
He reiterated “unwavering” U.S. support for Ukraine, per Price, and “discussed efforts to peacefully resolve the conflict in eastern Ukraine and upcoming diplomatic engagements with Russia” — a nod to both Thursday’s call and the Jan. 10 meetings.
Zelenskiy tweeted that he was assured of “full” U.S. support “in countering Russian aggression.” U.S. officials have already publicly rebuked Russia’s demand heading into talks — that Ukraine be barred from NATO membership, saying the Western alliance’s military activity in former Soviet states threatens Russia.
But other items on Russia’s public demands are not “unacceptable” and could be addressed through diplomacy, Blinken, Price and others have said — provided that Russia de-escalate as well by pulling back its forces from Ukraine’s borders.
Instead, while Russian state media reported Monday that more than 10,000 were withdrawn, the senior administration official said there’s still a “significant Russian troop presence in and around the border.”
The ominous language from Russian officials has also continued. Putin himself said Sunday that he is weighing “diverse” military and technical options if Russia’s demands aren’t addressed.
Amid that heightened threat, the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv is making “emergency preparations” in case it evacuates non-emergency personnel or diplomats’ families, according to internal emails obtained by ABC News.
The embassy is seeking additional security staff to temporarily fill in next month, as the “permanent staff continue Emergency Preparations in case of Authorized or Ordered Departure” — when an embassy allows diplomats’ families and non-emergency personnel to relocate because of a threat.
A State Department spokesperson confirmed Wednesday they are “conducting normal contingency planning, as we always do, in the event the security situation severely deteriorates.” But they told ABC News they are not “currently considering evacuations of U.S. government personnel or American citizens from Ukraine.”
Russian presidential aide Yuri Ushakov said that during Biden’s call with Putin, Biden assured that the U.S. is not going to deploy offensive strike weapons in Ukraine.
“President Biden has clearly stated that the United States does not intend to deploy offensive strike weapons in Ukraine. Our president noted that this is one of the key points that are just included in our documents that we have handed over to the Americans and on which we want to continue substantive negotiations,” Ushakov told reporters after a telephone conversation between the presidents.
According to Ushakov, Putin said Russia will seek guarantees of its security.
“Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin outlined in detail the basic principles that were laid down in the documents we submitted, and stressed that negotiations on these three tracks are important for us, of course, but the main thing is that we need a result, and we will achieve a result in the form of ensuring guaranteed security of Russia,” Ushakov told reporters. “The US President, in principle, agreed with this point of view and reacted quite logically and quite seriously.”
Earlier this month, the State Department updated its travel advisory for Ukraine to include a warning about “increased threats from Russia.” The advisory had been at the agency’s highest level, “Level 4: Do Not Travel,” for months because of the COVID-19 pandemic, but it now warns, “U.S. citizens should be aware of reports that Russia is planning for significant military action against Ukraine.”
White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki issued a short statement Thursday following Biden’s call with Putin, saying Biden “urged Russia to de-escalate tensions with Ukraine,” and “made clear that the United States and its allies and partners will respond decisively if Russia further invades Ukraine.”
“President Biden also expressed support for diplomacy, starting early next year with the bilateral Strategic Stability Dialogue, at NATO through the NATO-Russia Council, and at the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. President Biden reiterated that substantive progress in these dialogues can occur only in an environment of de-escalation rather than escalation,” Psaki said.
Also on Thursday, a senior White House official gave a readout of the call between Biden and Putin, saying the tone was “serious and substantive.”
According to the official, Biden outlined two paths forward — all depending on how Russia chooses to proceed.
“President Biden laid out two paths. Two aspects of the US approach that will really depend on Russia’s actions in the period ahead. One is a path of diplomacy, leading toward a de-escalation of the situation, and the other is a path that’s more focused on deterrence, including serious costs and consequences should Russia choose to proceed with a further invasion of Ukraine,” the official said.
“Those costs include economic costs include adjustments and augmentations of NATO force posture in allied countries and include additional assistance to Ukraine to enable it to further defend itself in its territory. as we’ve laid out previously,” the official added.
When asked if Putin had offered any further clarity on if he had made a decision on whether or not to further invade Ukraine, the official said there were “certainly no declarations to intention” in the conversation, but the U.S. will continue to monitor the situation to be ready for whatever Putin decides.
ABC News’ Christine Theodorou contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — President Joe Biden will speak to Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday — their second conversation this month amid heightened fears of a full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
The call, which the Biden administration said comes at Putin’s request, is the latest effort to defuse those tensions diplomatically.
But tens of thousands of Russian troops remain near Ukraine’s borders, and bellicose rhetoric from Russian officials and state propaganda have Western officials on edge still.
The U.S. and European allies have threatened unprecedented economic penalties for Moscow if it attacks Ukraine, nearly eight years after its forces seized the Crimean Peninsula and sparked a war in Ukraine’s eastern provinces known as Donbas.
Sanctions and other penalties have not brought that conflict to an end, with approximately 14,000 people killed and Russian-led separatists still fighting Ukrainian forces. U.S. officials say it’s unclear if Putin has decided to attack again in an all-out invasion, but Biden has already made clear U.S. forces will not come to Kyiv’s aid on the battlefield.
Instead, the Biden administration is hoping deterrence and diplomacy will stop Putin. A senior administration official said they “cannot speak to why the Russian side has requested the call,” but added both leaders believe there is “genuine value in direct leader to leader engagement.”
“I think we are at a moment of crisis and have been for some weeks now given the Russian build-up and that it will take a high level of engagement to address this and to try to find a path of de-escalation,” the official told reporters Wednesday.
In addition to the leaders’ call, U.S. and Russian diplomats will meet on Jan. 10, the two sides confirmed Tuesday, to discuss stated security concerns on either side.
“Open lines of dialogue, open lines of diplomacy have the potential to be constructive as we seek to de-escalate the potential for conflict in and around Ukraine,” State Department spokesperson Ned Price said of the talks.
After those meetings, NATO will hold a meeting with Russia on Jan. 12, while the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, a key security forum that has deployed a war monitor in eastern Ukraine, will hold a session Jan. 13.
“The Biden administration continues to engage in extensive diplomacy with our European allies and partners, consulting and coordinating on a common approach in response to Russia’s military build-up on the border with Ukraine,” Emily Horne, Biden’s National Security Council spokesperson, said in a statement.
But some European allies have called for greater involvement. The European Union “must be involved in these negotiations,” its top diplomat, Josep Borrell, told the German newspaper Die Welt.
“It’s about us. This is not simply the case for two states, i.e. America and Russia, or NATO and Russia — even if Moscow imagines it,” he added in the interview, published Wednesday.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken has said repeatedly the U.S. will not negotiate any arrangement about European security without first consulting European allies — speaking again to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy Wednesday, just as the two spoke before Biden and Putin’s first call this month.
He reiterated “unwavering” U.S. support for Ukraine, per Price, and “discussed efforts to peacefully resolve the conflict in eastern Ukraine and upcoming diplomatic engagements with Russia” — a nod to both Thursday’s call and the Jan. 10 meetings.
Zelenskiy tweeted that he was assured of “full” U.S. support “in countering Russian aggression.” U.S. officials have already publicly rebuked Russia’s demand heading into talks — that Ukraine be barred from NATO membership, saying the Western alliance’s military activity in former Soviet states threatens Russia.
But other items on Russia’s public demands are not “unacceptable” and could be addressed through diplomacy, Blinken, Price and others have said — provided that Russia de-escalate as well by pulling back its forces from Ukraine’s borders.
Instead, while Russian state media reported Monday that more than 10,000 were withdrawn, the senior administration official said there’s still a “significant Russian troop presence in and around the border.”
The ominous language from Russian officials has also continued. Putin himself said Sunday that he is weighing “diverse” military and technical options if Russia’s demands aren’t addressed.
Amid that heightened threat, the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv is making “emergency preparations” in case it evacuates non-emergency personnel or diplomats’ families, according to internal emails obtained by ABC News.
The embassy is seeking additional security staff to temporarily fill in next month, as the “permanent staff continue Emergency Preparations in case of Authorized or Ordered Departure” — when an embassy allows diplomats’ families and non-emergency personnel to relocate because of a threat.
A State Department spokesperson confirmed Wednesday they are “conducting normal contingency planning, as we always do, in the event the security situation severely deteriorates.” But they told ABC News they are not “currently considering evacuations of U.S. government personnel or American citizens from Ukraine.”
Earlier this month, the State Department updated its travel advisory for Ukraine to include a warning about “increased threats from Russia.” The advisory had been at the agency’s highest level, “Level 4: Do Not Travel,” for months because of the COVID-19 pandemic, but it now warns, “U.S. citizens should be aware of reports that Russia is planning for significant military action against Ukraine.”
(LONDON) — France this week became the latest European country to tighten its coronavirus restrictions, with nations across the continent posting record numbers of COVID-19 infections in an omicron-fueled surge.
On Dec. 21, the WHO’s regional director for Europe, Dr Hans Kluge, warned that the omicron variant — believed by scientists to be far more transmissible than delta — was set to become the dominant variant on the continent following confirmation that it already had in Denmark, Portugal and the U.K.
Since then, the rate of infection has increased, with France, Italy, the U.K. and Spain posting historic record numbers of COVID infections in recent days. Infections, according to Kluge, are 40% higher than during the same period last year.
In France, where nearly 90% of the eligible population is fully vaccinated, from Jan. 3 there will be an obligation to work from home for three days a week and mask mandates in outdoor city centers. Several countries announced prior to Christmas that they would be introducing restrictions for after the holiday weekend.
In Germany, that means that nightclubs will have to close, large-scale events such as soccer games cannot occur with a live audience and the sale of fireworks is also banned and large-scale events for New Years’ Eve are prohibited.
The Netherlands, meanwhile, is already in an effective lockdown to combat COVID-19 infections, with schools, non-essential stores, bars and restaurants closed until Jan. 14. In the U.K., Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland have reintroduced social distancing restrictions not seen since before the summer, while England has introduced health passports for mass gatherings and reintroduced mask mandates for public transport and outdoor settings.
However, England has been a notable outlier in that Boris Johnson’s government, encouraged by data that indicates the risk of hospitalization is lower from omicron than the delta variant, has not announced any new restrictions for the New Years’ period — despite the U.K. posting record numbers and more than 100,000 daily infections on several days last week.
Despite relatively high vaccination rates — around 68% of the European Union’s population has been fully vaccinated — there are concerns that not enough has been done to institute a booster drive across the continent which officials say is needed to drive up resistance against omicron.
For interstate European travel, the European Commission announced that their EU Digital COVID Certificate will only be valid for 9 months, meaning that boosters will be required for certificates to be renewed.
In several countries, life is set to become far more difficult for the unvaccinated. This month, Germany has placed major restrictions on access to public life for unvaccinated people — with only those who have been vaccinated or recently recovered allowed entry into non-essential stores, leisure facilities, bars and restaurants.
France meanwhile is set to change its COVID “health pass” into a “vaccine pass” from next month — now it is only valid with vaccination, rather than vaccination or proof of a negative test.
Several European officials have indicated that mandatory vaccinations are likely to become a fact of life in the future. Austria from February will institute a monthly fine on people who do not take up the offer of a vaccine. EU Commission President Ursula Von der Leyen has suggested vaccine mandates could be welcome, with concern that the estimated 150 million Europeans still unvaccinated are the group driving increases in hospitalizations.
(HONG KONG) — Hong Kong’s national security police arrested six people linked to Stand News, an independent online media outlet, in another sign that the city’s once-thriving press freedom is taking a turn for the worse.
Police also froze $7.8 million in assets and raided the outlet’s headquarters, where they seized “subversive articles,” officers said at a press conference on Wednesday.
Stand News announced after the raid that it would close, saying staff would no longer speak to the media.
The raid and arrests came about six months after the pro-democracy paper Apple Daily was forced to shut down following a newsroom raid, seizure of its assets, and arrest of its founder, Jimmy Lai.
Those arrested on Wednesday included former Stand News board members Denise Ho, a well-known pop singer and democracy activist, and Margaret Ng, an ex-lawmaker. Ronson Chan, deputy assignment editor and Hong Kong Journalists Association chairman, was also detained.
The arrests were made at their homes under a colonial-era law covering conspiracy to print or distribute seditious materials, police said in a statement. Chan attempted to live-stream police arriving at his door.
Chief Secretary John Lee said that anyone who uses “journalism as a disguise and a tool to carry out acts that endanger national security will be severely struck by the SAR government.”
The HKJA in a statement posted on Facebook said it is “deeply concerned that the police have repeatedly arrested senior members of the media and searched the offices of news organizations … HKJA urges the government to protect press freedom in accordance with the Basic Law.”
Around 200 officers raided the Stand News office, with a search warrant under the national security law, allowing them to “search and seize relevant journalistic materials.”
Police were seen carrying boxes out of the Stand News office.
(NEW YORK) — SydPath, an Australian-based lab, sent hundreds of patients the wrong test results, due to a “data processing error,” it said in a statement.
The lab announced in a statement Monday that a total of 995 people, who had taken COVID- tests on Dec. 22, Dec. 23 and Dec. 24 had received text messages that their test results were negative when the results had not yet been determined.
Of those 995 people, 486 people had actually tested positive.
This comes after the lab announced on Sunday it had told more than 400 people their results were negative when they were positive.
This error comes as the country sees the number of COVID-19 cases surge. On Tuesday, Australia reported 11,260 new positive cases, bringing its cumulative number of active COVID-19 cases to 323,285, according to the government’s Department of Health.
The lab, a part of St. Vincent’s Hospital Sydney, established an emergency response team to “rectify the issue as soon as possible,” according to its website, characterizing the mistake as a “clerical error.”
Those impacted had taken tests at any of the lab’s clinics.
SydPath said it will reduce the number of tests it processes “to ensure the volume remains within our capacity,” it said in the statement.
The lab said it reached out to those people and will update them with their correct results. It advised anyone impacted to self-isolate until they are contacted with their correct results, according to its website.
SydPath did not immediately respond to ABC News’ Request for comment.
(MOSCOW) — Russia’s deputy defense minister warned foreign ambassadors of a “high risk” of conflict between the country and its neighbor Ukraine — one day after President Vladimir Putin threatened “diverse” military and technical responses if the West doesn’t address his stated concerns.
These latest messages from Moscow are the kind that have had U.S. and other western officials on edge that Putin will launch an assault on Ukraine, even after President Joe Biden warned him doing so would bring massive penalties.
The Biden administration has repeatedly called for diplomacy with Russia to de-escalate tensions and end the war in Ukraine’s eastern provinces, nearly eight years after Russian troops armed separatist forces in a conflict that continues to simmer and claim lives.
But Russia’s demands for security guarantees, including that Ukraine be barred from joining NATO, have been called “unacceptable” by U.S. officials — possibly purposefully so, so that Russia can later claim to have given diplomacy a shot.
Russia has said it has no plans to invade but demanded the U.S., NATO, and Ukraine take seriously its concerns.
“We didn’t make the proposals just to see them blocked in terms of the diplomatic process, but for the purpose of reaching a negotiated diplomatic result that would be fixed in legally binding documents. We will aim at this,” Putin said Sunday.
His Deputy Defense Minister Alexander Fomin blamed NATO again Monday for provoking conflict by sending warships and reconnaissance planes to back Ukraine. That echoes a statement last week by his boss, Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, who claimed Ukraine, with U.S. mercenary help, is preparing a chemical weapons attack.
“The alliance has recently switched to the practice of direct provocations accompanied by the high risk of turning into armed confrontation,” Fomin said during a meeting that included envoys from 14 NATO countries.
It’s the kind of false pretext for an invasion that U.S. officials and analysts have warned Russia may create to justify an invasion.
“Russia is ostensibly outraged by a crisis of their own making,” said Mick Mulroy, a senior Trump administration Pentagon official and ABC News national security analyst. “It was Russia that put around 175,000 troops on the border and threatened to invade again if its demands were not met — ‘Do what I ask, or I will attack and occupy a sovereign country against all international norms.'”
The estimated number of Russian troops near Ukraine have ranged from 60,000 to over 100,000, with one leaked U.S. intelligence document warning Russia could be prepared to swiftly deploy as many as 175,000. U.S. officials have cited those troop movements, along with Russian propaganda attacks on Ukraine, which they say have increased tenfold, and bellicose rhetoric as evidence of a possible invasion.
But diplomacy could stave off war. The U.S. and Russia have agreed to hold talks in January to address each side’s concerns, along with talks between NATO and Russia and meetings at the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, according to U.S. officials. The OSCE, a key security forum, has deployed a war monitor in eastern Ukraine for years as the conflict has taken some 14,000 lives.
After coordinating a meeting between the Ukrainian government and the Russian-controlled separatists last week, the OSCE declared Thursday that both sides showed a “strong determination to fully adhere” to a July 2020 ceasefire agreement. The statement was heralded by Biden’s National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan and the State Department, whose spokesperson said, “We hope the resultant peace will create the diplomatic space necessary to de-escalate regional tensions and provide a positive atmosphere for further discussion.”
There has been no “resultant peace.” Three Ukrainian soldiers were wounded in shelling that last for hours on Sunday. There had been five times more ceasefire violations this month than last December, according to the OSCE.
But there was some notable Russian troop movements, according to state-run Interfax news agency, which reported that more than 10,000 troops pulled back from near Ukraine’s borders after military drills. The Kremlin also said Monday that it made sense to engage NATO directly about its security concerns, in addition to the U.S.
Whether that is yet a sign for hope that war can be avoided is unclear. U.S. officials have said it’s still unknown whether Putin has decided to invade, with tens of thousands of troops still in the area, including in Crimea, the Ukrainian peninsula Russia invaded and seized in 2014.
(LONDON) — After a failed appeal earlier this month, Britain’s The Mail on Sunday included a front-page notice on Dec. 26 to readers that it lost the legal battle over publishing parts of a handwritten letter Megan Markle, the Duchess of Sussex, wrote in 2018 to her now-estranged father, Thomas Markle, in 2019.
“The Duchess of Sussex wins her legal case for copyright infringement against Associated Newspapers for articles published in The Mail on Sunday and posted on Mail Online – SEE PAGE 3,” read a line at the bottom of the front page of the newspaper.
At the top of the third page was a short piece giving more details regarding the duchess’ lawsuit with the tabloid.
“Following a hearing on 19-20 January, 2021, and a further hearing on 5 May, 2021, the Court has given judgment for the Duchess of Sussex on her claim for copyright infringement,” it read. “The Court found that Associated Newspapers infringed her copyright by publishing extracts of her handwritten letter to her father in The Mail on Sunday and on Mail Online.”
An additional line indicated this was just one part of the agreement handed down by the court in February and upheld in May. “Financial remedies have been agreed.”
The statement was also published on Mail Online the same day, with links to the court rulings included.
“This is a victory not just for me, but for anyone who has ever felt scared to stand up for what’s right,” Meghan said in a statement after the latest appeal. “While this win is precedent setting, what matters most is that we are now collectively brave enough to reshape a tabloid industry that conditions people to be cruel, and profits from the lies and pain that they create.”
Meghan now lives in California with her husband, Prince Harry, and their two children, son Archie and daughter Lilibet.
(CAPE TOWN, South Africa) — South Africa’s Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu, an anti-apartheid activist and Nobel Peace Prize laureate, died on Sunday. He was 90.
“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,” Cyril Ramaphosa, South Africa’s president, said in a statement.
Tutu, a crusader for equality and racial justice, died in Cape Town, South Africa, the president’s office said.
He rose to global prominence as a leader of the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa, struggling against a political and social system of minority rule that he saw as cruel and unjust. Amid a violent and turbulent time, Tutu was known for his sermons calling for non-violent action. He was awarded The Nobel Peace Prize in 1984.
“Tutu was saluted by the Nobel Committee for his clear views and his fearless stance, characteristics which had made him a unifying symbol for all African freedom fighters. Attention was once again directed at the nonviolent path to liberation,” according to the prize committee.
After apartheid ended in 1994, Tutu chaired the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, a body whose daunting mandate called for investigating the country’s history of oppression, applying justice where necessary and helping the entire population step as one into a brighter future.
Under Tutu, the commission sought a middle ground between launching courtroom trials for “all perpetrators of gross violations of human rights” and total amnesty for them, Tutu wrote in a memoir, No Future Without Forgiveness, published in 1999. The commission granted amnesty to those who offered full disclosures of the crimes committed.
“Our nation sought to rehabilitate and affirm the dignity and personhood of those who for so long had been silenced, had been turned into anonymous, marginalized ones,” Tutu wrote. “Now they would be able to tell their stories, they would remember, and in remembering would be acknowledged to be persons with an inalienable personhood.”
In leading the commission, Tutu “touchingly and profoundly demonstrated the depth of meaning of ubuntu, reconciliation and forgiveness,” Ramaphosa said on Sunday.
“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,” he said. “We pray that Archbishop Tutu’s soul will rest in peace but that his spirit will stand sentry over the future of our nation.”
Desmond Mpilo Tutu was born on Oct. 7, 1931, in Klerksdorp, South Africa.
He was a teacher in South Africa before becoming a priest, a vocation that led him to study at King’s College London in the mid-1960s. He moved between the United Kingdom and South Africa for the next decade, holding teaching and theological leadership positions, according to the college.
St. Mary’s Cathedral in Johannesburg appointed Tutu as dean in 1975, making him the first Black priest to hold the position. Ten years later, he became the first Black bishop of Johannesburg. He was named archbishop of Cape Town a year later, elevating him to the highest position in the Anglican hierarchy in Africa, according to a biography posted by King’s College.
“On behalf of the Anglican Church of Southern Africa, the whole faith community, and I make bold to say, on behalf of millions across South Africa, Africa and the world, I extend our deepest condolences to his wife, Nomalizo Leah, his son, Trevor Thamsanqa and to his daughters, Thandeka, Nontombi and Mpho. And all of their families,” Thabo Makgoba, Anglican archbishop of Cape Town, said in a statement on Sunday.
On the morning of April 27, 1994, when all South Africans were allowed to enter voting booths, a day that would mark both the end of apartheid and the election of Nelson Mandela as president, Tutu rose early at the archbishop’s complex in Cape Town, he wrote in his memoir.
He drove from his residence in a “leafy upmarket suburb” to Gugulethu, deciding “that I would cast my vote in a ghetto township,” an action he described as symbolic.
“How do you convey that sense of freedom that tasted like sweet nectar for the first time? How do you explain it to someone who was born into freedom? It is impossible to convey,” Tutu wrote. “It is ineffable, like trying perhaps to describe the color red to a person born blind. It is a feeling that makes you want to cry and laugh at the same time, to dance with joy, and yet fearful that it was too good to be true and that it just might all evaporate. You’re on cloud nine.”
