Mandela’s Ex-Wife, Winnie Madikizela Is Dead

South African anti-apartheid campaigner Winnie Madikizela-Mandela has died aged 81, her family have confirmed.

“She succumbed peacefully in the early hours of Monday afternoon surrounded by her family and loved ones,” the family said in a statement.

The ex-wife of Nelson Mandela was known as “mother of the nation” and had been admitted to hospital in January with a kidney infection.

Her family said she “kept the memory of her imprisoned husband Nelson Mandela alive during his years on Robben Island and helped give the struggle for justice in South Africa one its most recognisable faces.”

News of her death comes on the day the US marks 50 years since the assassination of civil rights activist Martin Luther King — who her former husband Nelson Mandela paid tribute
to while accepting the Nobel Peace Prize in 1993.