South Africa’s last apartheid-era president FW de Klerk died on Thursday at the age of 85, his foundation has announced.
In a statement, the FW de Klerk Foundation said the former president succumbed to cancer on Thursday morning at his home in Cape Town.
“It is with the deepest sadness that the FW de Klerk Foundation must announce that former president FW de Klerk died peacefully at his home in Fresnaye earlier this morning following his struggle against mesothelioma cancer.”
He is survived by his wife Elita and children Jan and Susan.
De Klerk was at the helm of apartheid South Africa when the white minority government agreed to end its system of segregation against blacks.
He shared the Nobel Peace Prize in 1993 with Nelson Mandela “for their work for the peaceful termination of the apartheid regime, and for laying the foundations for a new democratic South Africa.”
Funeral arrangements would be announced in due course, the foundation said.
JN/APA