Boutros Boutros-Ghali, a veteran Egyptian diplomat who made his mark as an architect of the Camp David accords and later became the sixth secretary-general of the United Nations, has died at the age of 93.
His death was confirmed Tuesday by Rafel Ramirez Carreno, Venezuela's U.N. ambassador and current president of the U.N. Security Council, reported the BBC. A subsequent report from Egypt's state-run Ahram Online stated that he died in a hospital of the Egyptian city of Giza.
Boutros-Ghali's death puts an end to a historic political career in which he made history as the first person from the African continent to become the head of the U.N.
However, even before his ascent to the U.N., Boutros-Ghali was already making waves in the political scene. Beginning in the late 1970s, he ended his stint from talking and teaching about international relations and law at Cairo University to actually being a part of them, migrating from his position as a teacher to several top positions in Egypt's Foreign Ministry, according to CNN.
These positions placed him on the front lines of historic moments such as the 1978 Camp David Summit Conference that forged an Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty.
His meteoric rise to the top of the U.N. came in 1992, however his time there didn't last, with Boutros-Ghali making history as the U.N's shortest-tenured secretary-general after his bid for a second term was vetoed by the U.S. During his tenure, he came under fire by the United States, which criticized him for refusing to cut the budget and the Bosnian conflict.
He also came under fire for his alleged inaction in the 1994 massacre in Rwanda. In a 2005 interview with the Associated Press, he referred to the massacre as his "worst failure at the United Nations," according to the Associated Press.
During said interview he argued that the inaction was the result of the conflict between him and then-U.S. President Bill Clinton, who along with other world leaders, had paralyzed action by setting impossible conditions for intervention.
"The concept of peacekeeping was turned on its head and worsened by the serious gap between mandates and resources," he told AP.
However, even after leaving office the former U.N. Chief remain in the public spotlight. From 1998 to 2002 he served as secretary general of La Francophonie - a grouping of French-speaking nations, and later in 2004, he was named the president of Egypt's human rights council.
His death stirred a wave of reactions around the world, even eliciting a statement over Twitter from Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta.
May God comfort the family of Boutros Boutros-Ghali the 6th @UN Secretary General. His document 'The Agenda for peace' is a lasting legacy
— President of Kenya (@PresidentKE) February 16, 2016
"May God comfort the family of Boutros Boutros-Ghali," he tweeted. "His document 'The Agenda for peace' is a lasting legacy."
