South Africa’s Tutu bemoans vast gap between rich and poor

JOHANNESBURG – Nobel laureate Desmond Tutu says a few in South Africa have become very rich while a “very large majority have remained in the bondage of poverty.”

Tutu rarely makes public statements because of health problems, but he delivers the new message in a video released in connection with a national day of prayer.

The 86-year-old former archbishop describes “squalor, living in shacks in filthy conditions” for many South Africans long after the 1994 end of white minority rule gave people hope for a better life.

Tutu says “we are all members of one family, the human family, God’s family” and he urges people to become “inspired, determined to live as who we really are.”