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Ali Mazrui, top Kenyan academic, dies in the US
Renowned Kenyan academic Ali Mazrui has died in the US aged 81 after being ill for several months.
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Renowned Kenyan academic Ali Mazrui has died in the US aged 81 after being ill for several months.Kenya's President Uhuru Kenyatta said Africa had been robbed of one of its greatest scholars.
Mr Mazrui had been "towering" academic whose "intellectual contributions played a major role in shaping African scholarship", he added.
Mr Mazrui had been a professor at Binghamton University in New York at the time of his death.
His body will be flown to Kenya for burial, said Khelef Khalifa, chairman of Kenya's Muslims for Human Rights group.
"His nephew, Alamin Mazrui, has confirmed that the professor's wish was to be buried in Kenya," he is quoted by the local Daily Nation newspaper as saying.
Mr Mazrui is survived by his wife and six children.