1931 – Oct. 7 – Desmond Mpilo Tutu is born in Klerksdorp, near Johannesburg.

1947 – Contracts tuberculosis, as he recuperates, he is visited by Trevor Huddleston, a British Anglican pastor working in South Africa. 

1955 – Marries Nomalizo Leah Shenxane and begins teaching at a secondary school in Johannesburg.

1961 – Is ordained as a minister in the Anglican church, after quitting teaching in disgust at South Africa’s apartheid government’s inferior education for Blacks.

1962 – Studies theology at King’s College London.

1966 – Returns to South Africa to teach at a seminary in the Eastern Cape.

1975 – Becomes the Anglican Church’s first Black dean of Johannesburg.

1976 – Serves as Bishop of Lesotho and voices criticism of apartheid in South Africa.

1978 – Becomes general-secretary of the South African Council of Churches and achieves global prominence as a leading opponent of apartheid, supports economic sanctions to achieve majority rule in South Africa.

1984 – Wins Nobel Peace Prize – “There is no peace in southern Africa. There is no peace because there is no justice. There can be no real peace and security until there be first justice enjoyed by all the inhabitants of that beautiful land,” Tutu says in his acceptance speech.

1985 – Becomes the first Black bishop of Johannesburg.

1986 – Is ordained the first Black Anglican Archbishop of Cape Town.

1989 – Leads anti-apartheid march of 30,000 people through Cape Town. 

1990 – Hosts Nelson Mandela for his first night of freedom after Mandela is released from prison after being held for 27 years for his opposition to apartheid. Mandela calls Tutu “the people’s archbishop.”

1994 – Votes in South Africa’s first democratic election in which all races can cast ballots.

1995 – President Nelson Mandela appoints Tutu to be chairman of the country’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

1996 – Tutu retires as prelate, the Anglican Church gives him the title of Archbishop Emeritus of Cape Town.

1997 – Is diagnosed with prostate cancer and announces it to help with public awareness of the disease. 

1998 – Truth and Reconciliation Commission publishes its report, putting most of the blame for abuses on the forces of apartheid, but also finds the African National Congress guilty of human rights violations. The ANC sues to block the document’s release, earning a rebuke from Tutu.

2009 – Aug. 12 – Receives the Presidential Medal of Freedom from U.S. President Barack Obama. 

2010 – July 22 – Retires from public life, tells press: “Don’t call me, I’ll call you.” 

2013 – Launches international campaign for LGBTQ rights in Cape Town. “I would not worship a God who is homophobic.” 

2014 – July 12 – Urges the British parliament to allow assisted dying, saying, “The manner of Nelson Mandela’s prolonged death was an affront.” 

2021 – Oct. 7 – Frail, in a wheelchair, Tutu attends his 90th birthday celebration at St. George’s Cathedral in Cape Town. 

2021 – Dec. 26 – Tutu dies in Cape Town.
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Authorities in eastern Congo announced an evening curfew and new security checkpoints Sunday, fearing more violence after a suicide bomber killed five people in the first attack of its kind in the region.

Beni Mayor Narcisse Muteba, a police colonel, warned hotels, churches and bars in the town of Beni that they needed to add security guards with metal detectors because “terrorists” could strike again.

“We are asking people to be vigilant and to avoid public places during this festive period,” Muteba told The Associated Press on Sunday.

Brig. Gen. Constant Ndima, the military governor of North Kivu province, said there will be a 7 p.m. curfew, as well as more road checkpoints.

Officials initially said the death toll was six plus the suicide bomber, but they revised that figure a day later to five victims. Thirteen others remained hospitalized after the blast at the entrance to the Inbox restaurant on Christmas Day.

Saturday’s bloodshed dramatically deepened fears that Islamic extremism has taken hold in Beni. The town already has suffered years of attacks by rebels from the Allied Democratic Forces, or ADF, who trace their origins to neighboring Uganda. 

Officials have blamed the latest attack on those rebels, whose exact links to international extremist groups have been murky. The Islamic State’s Central Africa Province has claimed responsibility for attacks blamed on ADF, but it is unknown what role exactly the larger group may have played in organizing and financing the attacks.

There have been worrying signs that religious extremism was escalating around Beni: Two local imams were killed earlier this year within weeks of each other, one of whom had spoken out against the ADF.

Then in June, the Islamic State group’s Central Africa Province claimed responsibility for a suicide bomber who blew himself up near a bar in Beni without harming others. Another explosion that same day at a Catholic church wounded two people.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for Saturday’s attack, in which authorities say the bomber ultimately was stopped from entering the crowded restaurant. After the blast near the entrance, blood stained the pavement and mangled chairs lay strewn near the entrance.

Rachel Magali, who had been at the restaurant with her sister-in-law and several others, described hearing a loud noise and then people starting to cry.

“We rushed to the exit where I saw people lying down,” she told the AP. “There were green plastic chairs scattered everywhere and I also saw heads and arms no longer attached. It was really horrible.”
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The bodies of 28 migrants have washed up on Libya’s western coast after their boat sunk, a security official said Sunday, the latest tragedy on the world’s deadliest migration route. 

“Libyan Red Crescent teams recovered 28 bodies of dead migrants and found three survivors at two different sites on the beaches of Al-Alous,” some 90 kilometers (55 miles) from Tripoli, the source said. 

“The bodies’ advanced state of decomposition indicates that the shipwreck happened several days ago,” he said, adding the toll could rise in the coming hours. 

Images published by Libyan media outlets showed corpses lined up along the shore then placed in body bags. 

Libya, wracked by a decade of conflict and lawlessness, has become a key departure point for African and Asian migrants making desperate attempts to reach Europe. 

Migrants often endure horrific conditions in Libya before embarking northwards on overcrowded, often unseaworthy vessels that frequently sink or get into trouble. 

The latest tragedy comes just days after 160 migrants died within a week in similar incidents, bringing the total number of lives lost this year to 1,500, according to the International Organization for Migration. 

The IOM says more than 30,000 migrants have been intercepted in the same period and returned to Libya. 

The European Union has cooperated closely with the Libyan Coast Guard to cut numbers of migrants arriving on European shores. 

On their return, many face further horrific abuses in detention centers. 

 
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“Like falling in love” is how Archbishop Desmond Tutu described voting in South Africa’s first democratic election in 1994, a remark that captured both his puckish humor and his profound emotions after decades fighting apartheid.

Desmond Mpilo Tutu, the Nobel Peace laureate whose moral might permeated South African society during apartheid’s darkest hours and into the unchartered territory of new democracy, has died, South Africa’s presidency said on Sunday. He was 90.

The outspoken Tutu was considered the nation’s conscience by both Black and white, an enduring testament to his faith and spirit of reconciliation in a divided nation.

He preached against the tyranny of white minority and even after its end, he never wavered in his fight for a fairer South Africa, calling the Black political elite to account with as much feistiness as he had the white Afrikaners.

In his final years, he regretted that his dream of a “Rainbow Nation” had not yet come true.

On the global stage, the human rights activist spoke out across a range of topics, from Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territories to gay rights, climate change and assisted death — issues that cemented Tutu’s broad appeal.

“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,” said President Cyril Ramaphosa.

Just 1.68 meters tall and with an infectious giggle, Tutu was a moral giant who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984 for his nonviolent struggle against apartheid.

He used his high-profile role in the Anglican Church to highlight the plight of Black South Africans.

Asked on his retirement as Archbishop of Cape Town in 1996 if he had any regrets, Tutu said: “The struggle tended to make one abrasive and more than a touch self-righteous. I hope that people will forgive me any hurts I may have caused them.”

Talking and traveling tirelessly throughout the 1980s, Tutu became the face of the anti-apartheid movement abroad while many of the leaders of the rebel African National Congress, such as Nelson Mandela, were behind bars.

“Our land is burning and bleeding and so I call on the international community to apply punitive sanctions against this government,” he said in 1986.

Even as governments ignored the call, he helped rouse grassroots campaigns around the world that fought for an end to apartheid through economic and cultural boycotts.

Former hardline white president P.W. Botha asked Tutu in a letter in March 1988 whether he was working for the kingdom of God or for the kingdom promised by the then-outlawed and now ruling ANC.

Graveside orations

Among his most painful tasks was delivering graveside orations for Black people who had died violently during the struggle against white domination.

“We are tired of coming to funerals, of making speeches week after week. It is time to stop the waste of human lives,” he once said.

Tutu said his stance on apartheid was moral rather than political.

“It’s easier to be a Christian in South Africa than anywhere else, because the moral issues are so clear in this country,” he once told Reuters.

In February 1990, Tutu led Nelson Mandela on to a balcony at Cape Town’s City Hall overlooking a square where the ANC talisman made his first public address after 27 years in prison.

He was at Mandela’s side four years later when he was sworn in as the country’s first Black president.

“Sometimes strident, often tender, never afraid and seldom without humor, Desmond Tutu’s voice will always be the voice of the voiceless,” is how Mandela, who died in December 2013, described his friend.

While Mandela introduced South Africa to democracy, Tutu headed the Truth and Reconciliation Commission that laid bare the terrible truths of the war against white rule.

Some of the heartrending testimony moved him publicly to tears.

Pulled no punches

But Tutu was as tough on the new democracy as he was on South Africa’s apartheid rulers.

He castigated the new ruling elite for boarding the “gravy train” of privilege and chided Mandela for his long public affair with Graca Machel, whom he eventually married.

In his Truth Commission report, Tutu refused to treat the excesses of the ANC in the fight against white rule any more gently than those of the apartheid government.

Even in his twilight years, he never stopped speaking his mind, condemning President Jacob Zuma over allegations of corruption surrounding a $23 million security upgrade to his home.

 

In 2014, he admitted he did not vote for the ANC, citing moral grounds.

“As an old man, I am sad because I had hoped that my last days would be days of rejoicing, days of praising and commending the younger people doing the things that we hoped so very much would be the case,” Tutu told Reuters in June 2014.

In December 2003, he rebuked his government for its support for Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe, despite growing criticism over his human rights record.

Tutu drew a parallel between Zimbabwe’s isolation and South Africa’s battle against apartheid.

“We appealed for the world to intervene and interfere in South Africa’s internal affairs. We could not have defeated apartheid on our own,” Tutu said. “What is sauce for the goose must be sauce for the gander too.”

He also criticized South African President Thabo Mbeki for his public questioning of the link between HIV and AIDS, saying Mbeki’s international profile had been tarnished.

Schoolteacher’s son 

A schoolteacher’s son, Tutu was born in Klerksdorp, a conservative town west of Johannesburg, on Oct. 7, 1931.

The family moved to Sophiatown in Johannesburg, one of the commercial capital’s few mixed-race areas, subsequently demolished under apartheid laws to make way for the white suburb of Triomf — “Triumph” in Afrikaans.

Always a passionate student, Tutu first worked as a teacher. But he said he had become infuriated with the system of educating Blacks, once described by a South African prime minister as aimed at preparing them for their role in society as servants.

Tutu quit teaching in 1957 and decided to join the church, studying first at St. Peter’s Theological College in Johannesburg. He was ordained a priest in 1961 and continued his education at King’s College in London.

After four years abroad, he returned to South Africa, where his sharp intellect and charismatic preaching saw him rise through lecturing posts to become Anglican dean of Johannesburg in 1975, which was when his activism started taking shape.

“I realized that I had been given a platform that was not readily available to many Blacks, and most of our leaders were either now in chains or in exile. And I said: ‘Well, I’m going to use this to seek to try to articulate our aspirations and the anguishes of our people,'” he told a reporter in 2004.

By now too prominent and globally respected to be thrust aside by the apartheid government, Tutu used his appointment as secretary-general of the South African Council of Churches in 1978 to call for sanctions against his country.

He was named the first Black archbishop of Cape Town in 1986, becoming the head of the Anglican Church, South Africa’s fourth-largest. He would retain that position until 1996.

In retirement he battled prostate cancer and largely withdrew from public life. In one of his last public appearances, he hosted Britain’s Prince Harry, his wife, Meghan, and their 4-month-old son, Archie, at his charitable foundation in Cape Town in September 2019, calling them a “genuinely caring” couple.

Tutu married Leah in 1955. They had four children and several grandchildren, and homes in Cape Town and Soweto township near Johannesburg.

 
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A suicide bomber attacked a restaurant and bar Saturday as dozens of patrons gathered on Christmas Day, killing at least six others in an eastern Congolese town where Islamic extremists are known to be active. 

Heavy gunfire rang out shortly after the bomb went off, with panicked crowds fleeing the town’s center. 

Gen. Sylvain Ekenge, spokesperson for the governor of North Kivu, said that security guards had blocked the bomber from entering the crowded bar and so the person instead detonated the explosives at the entrance. 

“We call on people to remain vigilant and to avoid crowded areas during the holiday season,” he said in a statement. “In the city and territory of Beni, it is difficult, in these times to know who is who.” 

Loud noise, black smoke

Rachel Magali had been at the restaurant-bar for about three hours with her sister-in-law and several others when she heard a loud noise outside. 

“Suddenly we saw black smoke surrounding the bar and people started to cry,” she told The Associated Press. “We rushed to the exit where I saw people lying down. There were green plastic chairs scattered everywhere and I also saw heads and arms no longer attached. It was really horrible.” 

Among the dead were two children, according to Mayor Narcisse Muteba, who is also a police colonel. At least 13 other people were wounded and taken to a local hospital. 

“Investigations are underway to find the perpetrators of this terrorist attack,” he told The Associated Press. 

Rebels vex town

The town has long been targeted by rebels from the Allied Democratic Forces, a group that traces its origins to neighboring Uganda. But an Islamic State group affiliate claimed responsibility for two explosions in Beni in June, deepening fears that religious extremism has taken hold there, too. 

Those explosions included the first known suicide bombing in eastern Congo, a Ugandan man who blew himself up outside of a bar. The Islamic State group’s Central Africa Province later said that the suicide bomber was targeting Christians. The other explosion that day went off inside a Catholic church, wounding two people. 

Residents of the town have repeatedly expressed anger over the ongoing insecurity despite an army offensive and the presence of U.N. peacekeepers in Beni. In recent years, the town also has suffered through an Ebola epidemic and has seen several smaller outbreaks of the disease. 
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Clashes between two rival factions of the security forces in a port city in northeast Somalia have forced hundreds of families to flee their homes, a local official said Saturday.

The fighting has for several days rocked Bosaso, the commercial capital of the semi-autonomous state of Puntland in the country’s northeast.

“Thousands of the residents in the Bosaso town fled … as sporadic fighting was going on in some parts of the town,” local official Abdirizak Mohamed told Agence France-Presse.

“Most people decided to leave their houses after the warring sides used heavy machine guns and mortars”, mostly from two of the town’s neighborhoods, he said.

Mohamed said it was not clear exactly how many people had quit the town on the shores of the Gulf of Aden, but he estimated it was “hundreds of families.”

On Thursday, the United Nations’ humanitarian agency OCHA had said it was “extremely concerned” about the escalation in violence that had led thousands to flee in search of safety.

“With the fighting in Bosaso town continuing … more than half of the city’s population has reportedly been displaced from their homes,” OCHA representative for Somalia, Adam Abdelmoula, said in a statement.

He added that the fighting also had uprooted families already displaced by previous unrest.

“Some 40 percent of 70,000 internally displaced persons hosted in Bosaso town are also reported to have experienced secondary displacement,” Abdelmoula said.

Located on the northernmost tip of Somalia, Puntland is one of the restive Horn of Africa country’s five semi-autonomous states.
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