Sisulu Family announces Funeral arrangements for Mlungisi Sisulu (JR.)

The Sisulu family wishes to announce the arrangements of the funeral of Mlungisi Sisulu (Jr.) who passed away in London in the early hours of the 3rd of January 2008 from Cerebral Malaria.

The funeral service will be held on Sunday 13th January at the Walter Sisulu Hall in Randburg, Johannesburg at 10am. According to family spokesperson, Zwelakhe Sisulu, “it is expected that his body will return to South Africa with his father Max Sisulu on Thursday 10th January 2008.”

Mlungisi, better known as Lungi, was born on the 20th August 1966 in Moscow to Max Sisulu and Mercy Vuthela, two young South African exiles studying in the then Soviet Union. At the age of five years he arrived in Soweto to stay with his grandmothers - Greta Ncapayi and Albertina Sisulu - speaking only Russian! He quickly acclimatized, becoming the apple of both their eyes.

Lungi became politicized at an early age as a result of his exposure to the political activism of his family, in particular his grandfather Walter Sisulu, who he regularly visited on Robben Island. Lungi was part of the generation whose schooling was constantly interrupted by the political turbulence of the 1980s. His primary school years were also disrupted by the June 1976 uprising and its aftermath and this as well as the political environment of the time helped entrench his strong political views. As a youth he joined the Congress of South African Students and also became chairman of the Dube branch of the Soweto Youth Congress (SOYCO). In 1986 he was detained for nine months; becoming the third generation of Sisulus, alongside his grandfather and uncle Zwelakhe to be jailed at the same time.

In 1998 Lungi graduated from Hope College in Michigan, US with a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science and went on to join the Department of Foreign Affairs. His first international posting was in the South African Embassy in the Czech Republic capital of Prague where he rose to become First Secretary. While in Prague he completed his Master of Arts in International Relations through part-time study. In 2006 he was appointed First Secretary of the South African Embassy in Khartoum, Sudan and in the past six months served as Charge d’Affaires of the Mission.

In August 2007 Lungi married Kundi Jangano in Khartoum. They had planned to have their official wedding celebration in South Africa in April 2008. Tragically this was not to be. On Wednesday 2 January 2008, returning from a holiday trip to his uncle and aunt in Rome, Lungi was admitted to the Princess Alexandra hospital in Harlow, Essex, where he was diagnosed with cerebral malaria. He passed on shortly thereafter.