Painter Mustafa Arapi has passed away this Thursday due to COVID-19 at the age of 70. He could not win the battle with the virus after being hospitalized for days. 

The news is announced by his daughter, Dorina Arapi, who discovers that the painter died at midnight and leaves a touching message for her late father. 

A few days ago, she revealed that Mustafa Arapi had been hospitalized at COVID-2 and called on Prime Minister Edi Rama and Minister Manastirliu that the institutions pay attention to her father as a high figure in Albanian culture. 

"My dad passed away at midnight. The light, the sun, the world, the pillar of our family is gone. Dad! I want to remember you always smiling! We love you forever!" said Dorina Arapi.

Mustafa Arapi was born on July 23, 1950 in Tirana. He graduated from the Academy of Arts in 1979 for painting. After graduation, he began working as a restorer of Byzantine works of art at the Institute of Cultural Monuments in Tirana. 

He worked as a professor at the Academy of Arts from 1985 to 1991. Then, during the years 1993-2006, he was head of the Department of Art at the Institute of Cultural Monuments.