Kofi Annan, former UN chief and Nobel Peace Prize Laureate dies

Former United Nations Secretary-General and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Kofi Annan has died, the Kofi Annan Foundation said on Saturday.

Annan, of Ghanaian nationality, died in hospital in Bern, Switzerland, in the early hours of Saturday, two close associates of Annan said.

"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," the foundation said in a statement.

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... pic.twitter.com/42nGOxmcPZ

— Kofi Annan (@KofiAnnan) August 18, 2018

Annan served two terms as U.N. Secretary-General in New York from 1997-2006 and retired in Geneva and later lived in a Swiss village in the nearby countryside.

"In many ways, Kofi Annan was the United Nations. He rose through the ranks to lead the organization into the new millennium with matchless dignity and determination," U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, whom Annan had chosen to head the U.N. refugee agency, said in a statement.

As head of U.N. peacekeeping operations, Annan was criticised for the world body's failure to halt the genocide in Rwanda in the 1990s.

"The U.N. can be improved, it is not perfect but if it didn't exist you would have to create it," he told the BBC's Hard Talk during an interview for his 80th birthday last April, recorded at the Geneva Graduate Institute where he had studied

"I am a stubborn optimist, I was born an optimist and will remain an optimist," Annan added.

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