Nelson Mandela has died peacefully in his Johannesburg home, at the age of 95, South African president Jacob Zuma has announced.
“The founding president of our democratic nation has departed,” Zuma said in an international televised address.
“He passed on peacefully in the company of his family around 20.50 on the 5th of December 2013. He is now resting. He is now at peace.
“Our nation has lost its greatest son. Our people have lost a father.”
Mandela had been receiving round the clock intensive care from military and other doctors since September, when he was discharged from a nearly three-month hospital stay for a lung infection.
The former president was hospitalised in early June. He had a history of lung problems dating back to his time at the Robben Island prison camp near Cape Town.
Mandela led South Africa’s transition from white-minority rule in the 1990s, after 27 years in prison.
In February 1990, he was released from jail and after the country’s first democratic elections became South Africa's first black president in 1994, serving for five years.
See photos of Nelson Mandela from throughout his life on radionz.co.nz.