Updated at 1:30 p.m. ET.
Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, wife of the late South African leader Nelson Mandela, and a leading anti-apartheid figure in her own right during the country's most turbulent years, has died at age 81.
The Mandela family said in a statement that she died Monday in Johannesburg "after a long illness, for which she had been in and out of hospital since the start of the year."