One of the leading voices against South Africa's apartheid policies has died at the age of 89.
Beyers Naude, a white Afrikaner, was a rare public symbol of white dissent during the apartheid years and was a close friend of liberation icon and former president Nelson Mandela, who was elected the country's first black president a decade ago.
Family friend Carl Niehaus said Mr Naude died in a retirement home in the early hours of this morning. "Only his wife and children were present," he added.
Mr Mandela, who once described Mr Naude as "one of the most important pioneers of modern South Africa," hailed his friend as a "true humanitarian" and "son of Africa".
"Oom Bey (Naude) was a brave man as he stood up against apartheid at a time when it was an unpopular thing for whites to do and he did so at the expense of his family and his freedom," Mr Mandela said in a statement issued by his charity foundation.
The wheelchair-bound Mr Naude had lived in a retirement home for the past five years and his health deteriorated over the past month.
The son of one of the founders of the white supremacist group Broederbond, he took up church ministry at the age of 25 and rose to prominence after he rejected the Dutch Reformed Church's argument that apartheid was sanctioned by the Bible.
He was turned against apartheid by violence - especially the 1960 Sharpeville massacre, when police shot and killed scores of unarmed black protesters.
Mr Naude was forced out of the church because of his activism and the apartheid government banned him from making public speeches critical of its policies.
In the run-up to democracy in 1994, Mr Naude was the only Afrikaner in the African National Congress delegation that held talks with the former ruling National Party.