BBC News presenter Clive Myrie has said “journalism has lost a giant” as he paid an emotional tribute to his colleague and friend George Alagiah.

The award-winning journalist and presenter died on Monday, the BBC said. Alagiah had been diagnosed with bowel cancer in 2014.

Announcing his colleague’s death during the lunchtime BBC News broadcast, Myrie appeared emotional as he spoke about his “mentor and friend”.

Myrie said: “On a personal note, George touched all of us here at in the newsroom with his kindness and generosity, his warmth and his good humour.

“We loved him here at BBC News and I loved him as a mentor, colleague and friend.

“His spirit, strength and courage in the later years of his life is something his family can be so proud of. Journalism has lost a giant.”

On the BBC News at Six, Sophie Raworth, who launched the “new look” show with Alagiah 20 years ago, shared that his “final” wish to return to work one last time.

Raworth said: “I saw him a few weeks ago. He told me he had hoped to come back to work one last time, to say thank you and goodbye right here live on air in the studio.

“He didn’t get a chance. So we have done it for him. I will leave you now with George Alagiah in his own words.”

Alagiah first joined the BBC as a foreign affairs correspondent in 1989, and won accolades for his reports on the famine and war in Somalia in the early 1990s, and was nominated for a Bafta in 1994 for covering Saddam Hussein’s genocidal campaign against the Kurds of northern Iraq.

He was also named Amnesty International’s journalist of the year in 1994 for reporting on the civil war in Burundi and also won the Broadcasting Press Guild’s award for television journalist of the year.

Since 2003, Alagiah had been the regular presenter of BBC News at Six, as well as hosting News at One and News at Six.

Alagiah, who was appointed an OBE for services to journalism in 2008, underwent 17 rounds of chemotherapy to treat his advanced bowel cancer after he was first diagnosed in 2014.

He returned to presenting duties in 2015 after making progress against the disease, and said he was a “richer person” for it.

His cancer returned in December 2017, and the presenter underwent further treatment before once again returning to work.

Last October, he announced a break from his role on BBC News as he dealt with “a further spread” of the disease.