Tokyo, Oct 29 (IANS): A Japanese academic and diplomat who became the first female to be appointed UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has died aged 92, it was reported on Tuesday.

Sadako Ogata worked on some of the largest crises of the decade during her time in service from 1991 to 2000, the BBC reported.

In 1991, she became the first woman, the first Japanese person, and the first academic to be installed as the (UNHCR).

Within weeks of starting her job, she was faced with one of the biggest crises of the 1990s - millions of Kurdish refugees had fled to Iran after the Gulf War.

She would go on to oversee large-scale operations in areas including Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo and the Great Lakes region of Africa.

Ogata was born in Tokyo in 1927, the daughter of a Japanese diplomat father.

She was also the great-granddaughter of former Japanese Prime Minister Tsuyoshi Inukai, who was assassinated in 1932 in an attempted coup.