South African anti-apartheid activist Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, former wife of the late Nelson Mandela, has died after a long illness. 

She was 81.

(Sky News)

Madikizela-Mandela was married to South Afirca’s first black president from 1958 to 1996.

Nelson Mandela served 27 years in prison for conspiring to overthrow the state.

He was released in 1990 and served as president from 1994 to 1999 and died in 2013.

Nobel laureate and former archbishop Desmond Tutu described her as a defining symbol of the fight against apartheid.

Hailed as mother of the ”new” South Africa, Winnie Madikizela-Mandela’s legacy as an anti-apartheid heroine was undone when she was imprisoned in 1991 for kidnapping and assault.