Daughter of Singapore's founding father dies at 69

SINGAPORE — 

The estranged sister of Singapore's erstwhile Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong died connected Wednesday astatine 69, aft being diagnosed with progressive supranuclear palsy successful 2020.

The decease of Lee Wei Ling, a doctor, was announced by her younger member Lee Hsien Yang connected Facebook.

The siblings are the children of Singapore's founding Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew and person been embroiled successful a public quality astir what to bash with their precocious father's house aft the elder Lee died successful 2015.

The erstwhile PM Lee, present a elder curate successful the cabinet, wrote connected Facebook that contempt the rift betwixt him and his siblings, "I held thing against Ling, and continued to bash immoderate I could to guarantee her welfare."

He described his sister arsenic a combatant who was "fiercely loyal to friends, sympathized instinctively with the underdog, and would mobilize actively to bash thing erstwhile she saw unfairness, oregon suspected wrongdoing."

The precocious doc earned the prestigious President's assistance and topped her cohort successful aesculapian school. Lee ne'er joined and stayed with her parents until their deaths.

She helped acceptable up Singapore's National Neuroscience Institute and served arsenic its manager for 11 years. She besides regularly contributed columns to the nationalist newspaper, The Straits Times.

Senior curate Lee said his sister had diagnosed herself earlier the doctors did. "She took it with her accustomed fortitude and stoicism and posted astir it arsenic 1 of those things successful beingness to beryllium borne and endured. She knew what it meant, and made the astir of the clip she had, adjacent arsenic her wellness declined," helium wrote.

When announcing her illness, Wei Ling wrote: "My contiguous absorption to the quality was 'ren', oregon endure successful Chinese, of which the accepted quality has a weapon supra a heart. I person been practicing 'ren' since I was successful Chinese school, recognizing that beingness has galore unpleasant, unavoidable situations."