Mandela's daughter Zindzi world's highest-profile Covid-19 victim, was diagnosed with disease the day she died
Zindzi Mandela, daughter of South African icons Nelson and Winnie Mandela, reportedly tested positive for Covid-19 the day she died. Zondwa Mandela, her son, revealed that she did have the disease, but it is yet to be confirmed if it caused her death at age 59 in a Johannesburg hospital on Monday. Nonetheless, Zindzi is currently the world's highest-profile victim of the deadly virus, which has claimed more than 4,400 lives in South Africa alone.
The coronavirus outbreak is worsening day by day in the country despite the Johannesburg regime keeping cases down early in the pandemic with some of the world's toughest lockdown protocols and quarantine restrictions. "My mother did in fact test positive for Covid-19 on the day of her passing," Zondwa told state broadcaster SABC. "Although, this doesn't, therefore, mean that she died of Covid-related complications, but simply that she tested positive for it. Simply by the virtue that there was a positive test, we are therefore obligated to function and work within the framework of the existing regulation related to such cases."
Zindzi, who was also South Africa's ambassador to Denmark, succumbed to the disease on Monday morning. She rose to prominence in 1985 when she read out her father's rejection of then-president PW Botha's offer for freedom. At the time, the white minority government had offered to release Nelson Mandela from custody if he spoke against the violence perpetrated by his movement against apartheid. Zindzi read her father's letter rejecting the offer at a public meeting that was broadcast across the globe.
Having said that, South Africa has so far recorded the highest number of confirmed Covid-19 cases in Africa, with over 224,000 infections. Zindzi's native Gauteng province has the most cases in the country with over 75,000 cases or 33 percent of its population. Last week, provincial medical official Bandile Masuku told reporters that Gauteng is preparing over 1.5 million graves. "It's a reality that we need to deal with," he said, adding that it was the public's responsibility "to make sure that we don't get there."
The number of cases in South Africa continues to rise exponentially. At least 12,757 were reported on Wednesday alone. "This is untimely," ANC spokesman Pule Mabe said of Zindzi's death. "She still had a role to play in the transformation of our own society and a bigger role to play even in the African National Congress."
Zindzi courted controversy last year after calling for the return of white-owned land to South Africa's Black majority. "Dear Apartheid Apologists, your time is over. You will not rule again. We do not fear you. Finally, the land is ours," she tweeted in June 2019.
That said, President Cyril Ramaphosa led the tributes to Zindzi on Monday. "Zindzi Mandela was a household name nationally and internationally, who during our years of struggle, brought home the inhumanity of the apartheid system and the unshakeable resolve of our fight for freedom," he said. "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."
"Her spirit joins Tata Madiba and Mama Winnie in a reunion of leaders to whom we owe our freedom," he added.