Addis Ababa, Ethiopia – 17 February 2016: The Chairperson of the African Union Commission (AUC), Dr. Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma has expressed deep sorrow at the death of Boutros Boutros-Ghali, Egyptian diplomat and the first African to hold the position of United Nations’ Secretary-General.

“My thoughts and prayers go out to his family, the government and people of Egypt. H.E. Boutros Boutros-Ghali was a great African who represented the continent in the international arena and strived tremendously to reform the United Nations systems and structures. He will be greatly missed in Egypt and across the African continent”, Dr. Dlamini Zuma mourned.

A seasoned diplomat, Boutros-Ghali served as a Member of Parliament, Egyptian Minister of State for Foreign Affairs for several years, and Deputy Prime Minister for Foreign Affairs before beginning his tenure as Secretary General of the United Nations. Boutros-Ghali led the United Nations in the precarious post-Cold War era and helped to guide the UN’s response to critical matters of the time such as the war in Yugoslavia.

Boutros-Ghali, committed to the idea of peace, notably drafted “An Agenda for Peace: Preventive Diplomacy, peacemaking and peace-keeping”, a report written for the United Nations as an analysis of and recommendations for keeping peace in the post-Cold war world.

Boutros-Ghali also organized the first substantial UN relief operation in Somalia when there was famine in the Horn of Africa, and was a key player in bringing about an end to the war between Egypt and Israel in the 1970s.

Boutros Boutros-Ghali died on Tuesday, 16 February 2016, at the age of 93 after being hospitalized for a broken pelvis.