JOHANNESBURG (SOUTH AFRICA) – Zindzi Mandela, daughter of former South African president and anti-apartheid struggle hero Nelson Mandela, died on Monday.
Zindzi, who is the youngest daughter of Mandela and Winnie Madikizela, shot to fame when she read out her father’s rejection of then-president P W Botha’s offer of a conditional release from prison in 1985.
Speaking on behalf of the family, the Mandela Legacy Foundation said memorial and funeral arrangements for Zindzi are to be announced later this week.
Zindzi, 59, who served as South Africa’s envoy to Denmark, died in the early hours on Monday in a Johannesburg hospital, said President Cyril Ramaphosa’s office.
She was posted to Denmark in 2015 and was designated to head the mission in Monrovia, Liberia.
Ramaphosa expressed sadness at her passing days before Nelson Mandela’s birthday, saying she brought home “the unshakeable resolve of our fight for freedom”.
“After our liberation she became an icon of the task we began of transforming our society and stepping into spaces and opportunities that had been denied to generations of South Africans,” Ramaphosa’s office quoted him as saying.
(Photos syndicated via Reuters)
This story has been edited by BH staff and is published from a syndicated field
