Zindzi Mandela, the daughter of South Africa’s anti-apartheid icons Nelson Mandela and Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, has died.
She died in Johannesburg, South Africa on Monday morning aged 59.
The death has been confirmed by a family source but the cause of death was not revealed, South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) reports.
Until her death, she was the South African ambassador to Denmark.
The Mandelas’ daughter came to international prominence in 1985, when the white minority Government offered to release 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 read his letter and authoritatively rejected the offer at a packed public meeting which was broadcast around the world.
In 2013, she attended the UK premiere of Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom, where she met the Prince William Duke and Catherine Duchess of Cambridge.
Zindzi was Nelson Mandela’s sixth child and his second with Winnie Madikizela-Mandela.
She is survived by her husband and four children.
