Former UN Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali dies, aged 93

Former U.N. Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali. Boutros passed away in a hospital in Cairo, Egypt, on Tuesday, 16 February 2016 after being admitted for a broken pelvis. (PHOTO: COURTESY)

The U.N. Security Council has announced the death of former U.N. Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali.

Boutros-Ghali, an Egyptian politician and diplomat, was the sixth secretary-general of the United Nations overall and he served from January 1992 to December 1996. Boutros-Ghali also goes down in history as the first UN Secretary General from Africa.

Boutros-Ghali oversaw the UN at a time when it dealt with several world crises, including the break-up of Yugoslavia and the genocide in Rwanda. He was then the first Secretary-General of the Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie from November 1997 to December 2002.

Ghali was elected in 1991 as Secretary-General, the top post of the UN. In 1992, he submitted An Agenda for Peace, a recommendation for how the UN could respond to violent conflict. He was criticised, however for the UN's failure to act during the Rwandan Genocide in 1994, which officially left over one million people dead and also appeared unable to muster support for the UN to intervene in the continuing Civil War in Angola.

One of the hardest tasks during his term was dealing with the crisis of the Yugoslav Wars after the disintegration of the former Yugoslavia. His reputation became entangled in the larger controversies over the effectiveness of the UN and the role of the United States in the UN.

Boutros passed away in a hospital in Cairo, Egypt, on Tuesday, 16 February 2016 after being admitted for a broken pelvis.

Venezuela’s U.N. Ambassador Rafael Ramirez, the current council president, made the announcement before a 15-member council at the start of a meeting on Yemen’s humanitarian crisis Tuesday.

The members stood in silent tribute in response to Ramirez’s request.