ISTANBUL: The grandson of South Africa’s first black president Nelson Mandela is continuing his grandfather’s legacy by working to raise awareness of Syrian women and children imprisoned by the Bashar al-Assad regime.

Zwelivelile Mandla Mandela, the head of South Africa’s Mvezo Clan Traditional Council, In an exclusive interview with Anadolu Agency vowed his support for the women and children who continue to languish in Syrian prisons.

Mandela took part in an Istanbul conference hosted by the Conscience Movement, an alliance of individuals, rights groups, and organizations aiming to secure urgent action for the release of women and children in prisons of Syria’s Assad regime.

Mandela said that work of the International Conscience Movement was “applaudable” for bringing together participants from around the world to “add their voices against the atrocities committed out on a daily basis against defenseless children and women in Syria.”

The conference held in Istanbul drew participants from 45 countries, including Syria, Britain, South Africa, Ecuador, Qatar, Kenya, Ukraine, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Brazil, Greece, Pakistan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Malaysia.

The unlawfully held Syrian women “remind us as South-Africans of our brutal past [fighting] against the Apartheid regime of South Africa,” he said.

Calling on the international community to speak out on behalf of imprisoned Syrian women and children, Mandela said it was the “voices from the global community that rallied behind the release Mandela campaign” from his 27 years in prison and the anti-Apartheid movement that enabled South Africa to “become free and democratic.”