JOHANNESBURG — Zindzi Mandela, the daughter of South African anti-apartheid leaders Nelson Mandela and Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, has died aged 59.
State television South African Broadcasting Corporation has reported that Mandela died at a Johannesburg hospital early Monday morning.
She had been South Africa’s ambassador to Denmark since 2015.
The Mandelas’ daughter came to international prominence in 1985, when the white minority government offered to release Nelson Mandela from prison if he denounced violence perpetrated by his movement, the Africa National Congress, against apartheid, the brutal system of racial discrimination enforced in South Africa at that time.
Zindzi Mandela read his letter rejecting the offer at a packed public meeting that was broadcast around the world.
Mandela died in a Johannesburg hospital during the early hours of the Monday morning, SABC News is reporting
Minister of International Relations and Cooperation Naledi Pandor said her department was still gathering information regarding her death.
“Zindzi will not only be remembered as a daughter of our struggle heroes, Tata Nelson and Mama Winnie Mandela, but as a struggle heroine in her own right. She served South Africa well,” Pandor said in a statement, expressing her condolences to the Mandela family and their loved ones.
“May her soul rest in peace.”
An official at the Nelson Mandela Foundation told News24 he had heard about Mandela’s death, though he had not spoken to her sister, Zenani, as yet.
An Instagram account under the name of Zindzi Mandela’s son, Bambatha, posted a photo of Zindzi with the caption “Lala ngo xolo Madlomo”.
She is survived by her husband and four children.
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This is a developing story. More information to follow.
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