Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2001. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
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United Press International - Friday, 1 June 2001
William M. Reilly
"Nkosi was an inspiration to many people beyond South Africa," Annan said upon learning of his death. The secretary-general had just appealed in an address to a U.S. Chamber of Commerce breakfast in Washington for American businesses to get involved in the AIDS fight.
The Joint U.N. Program on HIV/AIDS reacted to the news by saying the world has lost "a champion, a hero in the fight against AIDS."
"In his short life, he strove hard for the removal of stigma and discrimination that so many people suffer as a result of this disease," the agency said in a statement released in Geneva, adding that Nkosi's call "last year for HIV-positive people to be treated equally will be remembered in history as a turning point in the fight against AIDS."
"His life and death, like many others who silently die as a result of AIDS each day, bring home the urgency of the tasks that still need to be done," UNAIDS said.
The U.N. Children's Fund hailed Nkosi as a "courageous boy who moved a continent."
"He stood up before a distracted world and told us who he was -- a boy who was sick, but a still a boy, still a human being to be valued and cared for," said Carol Bellamy, UNICEF's executive director.
Bellamy called on the global community to exhibit "the same courage and leadership shown by Nkosi" during the General Assembly special session on HIV/AIDS, which opens later this month at U.N. headquarters, and the special session on children, set to take place in September.
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