The United Nations Human Rights Chief Zeid mourns late Secretary-General of the Organisation Kofi Annan, describing his death as painful, as the late diplomat is irreplaceable and a rare human being.
The statement released by the Human Rights Chief on their social media reads:
“We are deeply saddened to learn of the passing of Kofi Annan”.
Zied continued by saying:
“I am grief-stricken over the death of Kofi Annan. Kofi was humanity’s best example, the epitome, of human decency and grace. In a world now filled with leaders who are anything but that, our loss, the world’s loss becomes even more painful.
He was a friend to thousands and a leader of millions. To me like to so many in the UN, he was my immediate boss when I was thirty-one years of age and what a boss! He was always courageous, direct in speech, but never discourteous never discourteous.
Later, when I was an ambassador at the UN he inspired us, by being a dynamic and charismatic leader in his capacity as Secretary-General. And most of all, he was a friend and counsel to me and to so many others. Whenever as UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, I felt isolated and alone politically (which, in the last four years, was often) I would go for long walks with him around Geneva and listen.
When I told him once how everyone was grumbling about me, he looked at me like a father would look at a son and said sternly: “you’re doing the right thing, let them grumble.”
Then he grinned! There are some human beings who will seem irreplaceable to us, rare human beings. Kofi Annan is high among them. Goodbye, my dear friend … goodbye Kofi.”
The late Ghanian diplomat and former Secretary-General of United Nations, and was said to have died peacefully after a brief illness in the early hours of Saturday.