Thirty-ninth United States (U.S.) President Jimmy Carter has died at the age of 100, the Carter Center said last night.
Carter won the Nobel Peace Prize for his humanitarian work.
He died peacefully at his home in Plains, Georgia, surrounded by his family, the human rights organisation he founded said in a statement.
Carter was the longest-living president in US history, having celebrated his 100th birthday on October 1.
His death came over a year after his wife of 77 years, Rosalynn Carter, passed away in November 2023, and more than a year and a half after the ailing former president entered hospice care, in February 2023.
“My father was a hero, not only to me but to everyone who believes in peace, human rights, and unselfish love,” Chip Carter, the former president’s son, said.
His death came just three weeks before Donald Trump is due to begin his second term in the White House. The Carter Center said in October that Carter, a life-long Democrat, had cast his mail-in ballot for Kamala Harris, Trump’s opponent.
Carter’s own presidency was marred by spiralling inflation and a hostage crisis in Iran. The Democrat lost re-election to Republican Ronald Reagan in a landslide in 1980.
In the decades after he left office, however, Carter won widespread admiration for his extensive humanitarian work at home and abroad. He founded the Carter Center, the influential pro-democracy and human rights organisation, and became one of the most prominent volunteers for Habitat for Humanity, the affordable housing charity.
Carter was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002 “for undertaking peace negotiations, campaigning for human rights and working for social welfare”.
Carter faded from public view in the years leading up to his death. He visited Washington in 2018 to attend the state funeral of George HW Bush and endorsed Joe Biden for president in 2020 with an audio message that was played at the Democratic National Convention.
President Biden and First Lady Jill Biden visited the Carters at their home in 2021. The Bidens attended a memorial service for Rosalynn Carter, alongside the former president, at Emory University in Atlanta in November 2023.
News of the former president’s death came more than a year and a half after the Carter Center said in February 2023 that “after a series of short hospital stays,” the former president had decided to forego medical treatment and enter hospice treatment at home. Carter had undergone cancer treatment and suffered several falls in recent years.
