South Africa’s Nobel Peace Prize laureate, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who helped end apartheid in South Africa, has died aged 90.

Announcing Tutu's death on Sunday, South African President, Cyril Ramaphosa said “the passing of Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu is another chapter of bereavement in South Africa's farewell to a generation of outstanding citizens who have bequeathed us a liberated nation.”

Although the presidency gave no details on the cause of death, Tutu was diagnosed with prostate cancer in the late 1990s and, in recent years, was hospitalised on several occasions to treat infections associated with his treatment.

Tutu was one of the country’s best-known figures at home and abroad.

He was awarded the Nobel prize in 1984 for his role in the struggle to abolish the apartheid system.

The deceased was a longtime friend of Nelson Mandela and lived for a time on the same street in the South African township of Soweto, Vilakazi Street, the only one in the world to host two Nobel Peace Prize winners.

A contemporary anti-apartheid icon, Tutu was one of the driving forces behind the movement to end the policy of racial segregation and discrimination enforced by the white minority government against the black majority in South Africa from 1948 until 1991.