Former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan dies

Kofi Annan, the grandson of tribal chiefs in Ghana who rose through the ranks of the United Nations to become the first black African secretary-general, has died of an unspecified illness. He was 80.

Annan was born April 8, 1938, into an elite family in Kumasi, Ghana. He attended a boarding school in Kumasi and went to college and graduate school in the United States and Switzerland. Before serving as secretary-general from 1997 to 2006, he worked for the UN in different capacities in Ethiopia, Egypt, and Geneva before taking a series of senior posts at its headquarters in New York. Annan also served as UN peacekeeping chief and later faced criticism for his management of missions in Rwanda and Bosnia.

As the first secretary-general selected from within UN ranks, he called on the organization to head off genocide, crimes against humanity, ethnic cleansing, and war crimes. In 2001, he received a joint Nobel Peace Prize with the UN for revitalizing the organization and making human rights a priority. Annan is survived by his second wife, Swedish lawyer Nane Lagergren Annan, and three children.