Cape Town, South Africa (PANA) – Former president Nelson Mandela’s gravesite at Qunu in South Africa’s Eastern Cape will eventually be opened up to the public in the future, his eldest grandchild Ndileka Mandela confirmed Monday.
He, however, said “certain issues” need to be resolved because the site is on a private property.
Mandela, who died at the age of 95 in 2013, is buried on a hill in his childhood home. The global statesman’s funeral and burial attracted a global television audience of hundreds of millions.
The gravesite is expected to be a popular attraction as Mandela’s former home in Vilikazi Street in Soweto is visited by thousands of tourists every year.
Archbishop Desmond Tutu lived a few houses away, making it the only street in the world where two Nobel Laureates have lived.
Meanwhile, Mandela’s former wife, Winnie Madikizela-Mandela has complained that government lawyers were “deliberately delaying” the legal process in which she is challenging the estate where Mandela is buried.
The struggle stalwart who went through a bitter divorce with Mandela in the mid-1990s, last year launched a legal bid for the property in the Eastern Cape High Court in Mthatha. She claims it was purchased while she was married to Mandela and that it belonged to her in terms of tribal customs.
Madikizela-Mandela was excluded from Mandela’s will which left most of his estate to his widow Graca Machel and his children and grand children.
