JOHANNESBURG: Winnie Mandela, the former wife of South African anti-apartheid icon Nelson Mandela, died on Monday aged 81, triggering an outpouring of tributes to one of the country's defining and most divisive figures.

The firebrand activist died in a Johannesburg hospital, her family said, adding that she had "fought valiantly against the Apartheid state" and that she was known "far and wide as the Mother of the Nation".

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