South African President Cyril Ramaphosa has paid tribute to fallen anti-apartheid activist Devadass Paul David who passed away last week at the age of 79, APA learnt on Monday.
David died of natural causes at his home in the KwaZulu-Natal Province town of Dukuza, family spokesperson Zandile Qono-Reddy said.
“The passing of Paul David, as the last member of the Consulate Six, is a great loss to our country — especially to the people of KwaZulu-Natal, alongside whom he exerted himself in the trenches of the struggle,” Ramaphosa said on Monday.
The president said he extended his condolences to the David family and the extensive network of friends and activists of the late veteran.
However, the high office did not explain why it took four days to pay its tribute to the fallen activist since his death on Thursday.
Apart from being an anti-apartheid activist, David was a member of the Natal Indian Congress party as well as the United Democratic Front, a pressure group at the height of the apartheid struggle in the 1980s.
During his university days, he served on the Student Representative Council of the University of Natal, alongside Steve Bantu Biko, the Black Consciousness Movement leader who was brutally killed by apartheid police in 1977.
David was involved in the Release Mandela Campaign as part of the Consulate Six, a group of six activists who ran away from the police and took shelter in the British Consulate in Durban in 1984.
He is survived by his three daughters Jolene, Jazmin and Lisa, and five grandchildren.
NM/jn/APA