Legendary photographer Sam Nzima has died

Sam Nzima, the veteran photographer who took the iconic image of Hector Pieterson during the 1976 Soweto uprising, has died.

He was 83.

Nzima died in a Nelspruit hospital in Mpumalanga on Saturday evening, sources close to the family told TimesLIVE.

Economic Freedom Fighters general-secretary Godrich Gardee paid tribute to him in a tweet:

The famous Apartheid-era picture, taken on June 16, showed Pieterson being carried by Mbuyisa Makhubo. After his Pieterson image was published by The World, Nzima was put under house arrest for 19 months in Lilydale, Mpumalanga.

Time magazine described the photo as one that made the world take notice of apartheid. "Suddenly the world could no longer ignore apartheid. The seeds of international opposition that would eventually topple the racist system had been planted by a photograph," the magazine wrote.

This is a developing story.