Cape Town - Former president FW de Klerk died peacefully at his home in Fresnaye on Thursday morning, the FW de Klerk Foundation said.
“It is with the deepest sadness that the FW de Klerk Foundation must announce that former President FW de Klerk died peacefully at his home in Fresnaye earlier this morning, following his battle with mesothelioma cancer,” the foundation said in a statement.
“Mr De Klerk was 85 years old. He is survived by his wife Elita, his children Jan and Susan, and his grandchildren.”
The foundation said that the family would make an announcement regarding the funeral arrangements in due course.
On June 25, the foundation said that the late former president was doing fine, despite battling with cancer.
Earlier in June, media reported that De Klerk’s health was “rapidly deteriorating” since the former president was diagnosed with mesothelioma – a cancer that affects the lining of the lungs – in March this year. The foundation, however, refuted these claims on June 8.
“There has been no discernible deterioration in his health since he was diagnosed in March with mesothelioma – a cancer that affects the lining of the lungs. He is now considering the continuation of the course of immunotherapy that he has been following for the past two months,” the foundation said in a statement at the time.
“Mr De Klerk attended a meeting of the FW de Klerk Foundation board and comes into his office three or four times a week. He and his wife, Elita, hope to travel to Greece for a holiday as soon as Covid-19 regulations permit,” read the statement in June.
The former president’s son Willem, 53, died on October 6 last year in Durbanville, Cape Town, of cancer.
De Klerk won the Nobel Peace Prize, along with Nelson Mandela, “for their work for the peaceful termination of the apartheid regime.”
In February last year, the EFF called for De Klerk’s Nobel Peace Prize to be stripped, after the foundation issued an apology for a statement made –that apartheid was not a crime against humanity.
* This is a developing story.
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