Sam Nujoma, who led a three-decade-long fight for Namibia's independence from apartheid South Africa, has died aged 95, the presidency announced Sunday.
Tributes poured in for the southern African country's "founding father", with South Africa's President Cyril Ramaphosa crediting Nujoma as an inspiration for his own country's struggle against white minority rule.
The SWAPO liberation group leader died late Saturday after being hospitalised for three weeks, battling an illness from which he "could not recover", Namibia's President Nangolo Mbumba said in a statement.
With the "utmost sorrow and sadness" Mbumba said he was announcing "the passing of our revered freedom fighter and revolutionary leader".
"Our Founding Father lived a long and consequential life during which he exceptionally served the people of his beloved country," he added.
Namibia finally became independent in 1990, with Nujoma winning the country's first democratic election that year.
In a tribute, Ramaphosa called Nujoma "an extraordinary freedom fighter who divided his revolutionary programme between Namibia's own struggle against South African colonialism and the liberation of South Africa from apartheid".
Born to poor farmers from the Ovambo tribe, Nujoma was the eldest of 10 children.
He took a job as a railway sweeper near Windhoek in 1949 while attending night classes.
There, he met Herero tribal chief Hosea Kutako who was lobbying to end apartheid rule in Namibia, then known as South West Africa.
Kutako became his mentor, shepherding Nujoma as he became politically active among black workers resisting a government order to move to a new township in the late 1950s.
At Kutako's request, Nujoma went into exile in 1960, leaving his wife and four children behind.
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