Former Intelligence Minister Ronnie Kasrils' wife, Eleanor, has died at the age of 73 in a Cape Town hospital. His spokesperson Lorna Daniels says Mrs Kasrils had suffered a stroke yesterday morning.

SACP Central Committee member, Gwebs Qonde, says they have received the news of her passing with great shock. Qonde expressed the party's condolences to the Kasrils family and called on members of the tripartite alliance and broader society to stand by the family during their hour of grief.

Former President Thabo Mbeki also conveyed his condolences to the family. "Mbeki, who spoke to Kasrils immediately upon learning of  the tragic news, recalled Mrs. Kasrils' role in the struggle against apartheid and her steadfast commitment to the building of a non-racial, non-sexist and democratic South Africa post-1994," Mbeki's spokesperson Mukoni Ratshitanga said in a statement.

Eleanor Kasrils joined the Congress of Democrats in 1960 after the Sharpeville massacre. She participated in Umkhonto we Sizwe activities in Durban and was arrested in 1963 and went into exile with her husband in the same year after escaping from custody. She did work for the African National Congress in Tanzania and Britain and worked for late ANC President Oliver Tambo from 1990 until his death in 1993 when she returned to South Africa.

Eleanor is survived by her husband, daughter Bridgette and sons Andrew and Christopher. – Additional reporting by Sapa