Kofi Annan has died aged 80 in Switzerland where the former UN Secretary-General was fighting with the illness, Reuters said.
Mr Annan, a great diplomat and Nobel Peace Prize winner, passed away on Saturday. When he joined the UN civil service in 1962, he could not have envisaged that his career ladder would stretch all the way up to the 38th floor of the UN headquarters in New York, where the UNSG has his spacious office.
Mr Annan was a classic insider who had spent his entire working life within the UN system and did a lot for improving its system in the late 90s. Kofi Annan was a true statesman and a wonderful colleague who was widely respected and will be greatly missed. Current secretary-general Antonio Guterres said:
“In many ways, Kofi Annan was the United Nations. He rose through the ranks to lead the organisation into the new millennium with matchless dignity and determination,”
and added that Annan was a guiding force for good.
In 1971-72, Mr Annan took time off from the United Nations work in to gain a master’s degree in management at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
In 2001, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize jointly with the United Nations organisation for his efforts to ‘revitalise’ the UN and for ‘having given priority to human rights’. The UN Migration Agency confirmed his death writing online:
“It is with immense sadness that the Annan family and the Kofi Annan Foundation announce that Kofi Annan, former Secretary General of the United Nations and Nobel Peace Laureate, passed away peacefully on Saturday 18th August after a short illness.”
Mr Annan served with the UN up to 2006, later she was appointed as the UN special envoy for Syria. He had fought throughout his life against poverty and injustice
Kofi Atta Annan, diplomat, born 8 April 1938 in Kumasi, Ghana; died 18 August 2018 in hospital in Bern, Switzerland.
