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| Winnie Mandela: South African anti-apartheid campaigner and wife of Nelson Mandela dies aged 81 | Winnie Mandela: South African anti-apartheid campaigner and wife of Nelson Mandela dies aged 81 |
| (35 minutes later) | |
| Winnie Madikizela Mandela, the South African anti-apartheid campaigner and wife to Nelson Mandela when he was imprisoned on Robben Island has died, aged 81. | |
| Victor Dlamini, the Mandela family spokesperson, said she died peacefully in her sleep in Johannesburg hospital surrounded by her family and loved ones. | |
| Calling her "one of the greatest icons of the struggle against apartheid", in a statement, he said she "sacrificed her life for the freedom of the country." | |
| "Her activism and resistance to apartheid landed her in jail on numerous occasions, eventually causing her banishment to the small town of Brandfort in the then Orange Free State," he 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. She dedicated most of her adult life to the cause of the people and for this was known far and wide as the Mother of The Nation." | |
| He added: "The Mandela family are deeply grateful for the gift of her life and even as our hearts break at her passing, we urge all those who loved her to celebrate this most remarkable woman." | |
| Mandela is known to have been ill for a number of years and was recently admitted to hospital with a kidney infection, local media reported. | |
| Born in Bizana in the Eastern Cape in 1936‚ Mandela moved to Johannesburg to study social work, gaining her degree in 1956. | |
| The following year, aged 22, she was standing at a bus stop in Soweto when she was spotted by Nelson Mandela, who talked her into lunch the following week. | |
| Mandela was married to Evelyn Mase, a devoted Jehovah's Witness and mother to four of his children. They divorced in 1958 and later that year Winnie and Nelson were married. They had two children together. | |
| Five years later Nelson was arrested in 1963 and sentenced to life imprisonment for treason. | |
| After she actively campaigned for his release she was banished to the town of Brandfort in the Orange Free State, where she was forced to remain, only allowed to leave to visit her husband at the prison on Robben Island. | |
| In 1969 she was detained for 18 months in solitary confinement. | |
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