South Africa's Nobel Peace Prize laureate Desmond Tutu Thursday pleaded with Nelson Mandela's family not to "besmirch" his name after they engaged in a public spat fuelled by a legal dispute over a burial site.
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The family of the global icon has been involved in a bitter legal squabble over the reburial of Mandela's three children whose remains were exhumed from a family graveyard in Qunu in 2011 and reburied in Mvezo.
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The remains were dug out by Mandela's oldest grandson Mandla, without the family's approval.
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On Thursday the remains were reburied in Qunu, Mandela's childhood village, after more that a dozen family members led by Mandela's daughter Makaziwe, applied for an urgent ruling forcing Mandla to return them.
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"Please, please please may we think not only of ourselves. It's like spitting in Madiba's face," said Tutu in a statement.