The founding president of the non-racial and democratic South Africa and among the most reconciliatory politicians the world has ever seen, Mandela died on this day last December at the age of 95 after a long and bitter struggle with a recurring lung infection.
The iconic anti-apartheid leader who served 27 years on Robben Island, the maximum prison on South Africa’s Atlantic seaboard, had been ill since 2012.
He died peacefully in the company of his family at around 20h50 on December 5 last year. From the early hours of this Friday morning, South Africans started marking the first anniversary of the death of anti-apartheid icon Mandela. Official ceremonies to
mark the passing of the former South African leader included an interfaith prayer service early on Friday. This will be followed by a wreath-laying commemoration by veterans of the anti-apartheid struggle and a cricket game.
According to Al Jazeera, bells, hooters, and vuvuzelas, will be sounded for three minutes and seven seconds, followed by three minutes of silence, combined to equal a six-minute and seven-second ceremony designed to symbolise Mandela’s 67 years of public service.
When Mandela passed on last year, US President Barack Obama paid what has been described as a “solemn tribute” to Mandela.
“Through his fierce dignity and unbending will to sacrifice his own freedom for the freedom of others, he transformed South Africa and moved all of us,” Obama said in a White House address that was beamed all over the world shortly after the death of Mandela.
David Cameron, the British Prime Minister, addressing the media in front of Number 10 Downing Street last night, said Mandela was not only a hero of “our time, but a hero of all time.”
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