Nelson Mandela’s funeral to be held next weekend
Posted December 6, 2013 7:58 am.
This article is more than 5 years old.
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa (NEWS1130) – South Africa’s president says Nelson Mandela will be buried on Sunday, Dec. 15.
President Jacob Zuma also said today that a memorial service in a Johannesburg stadium will be held for the anti-apartheid leader on Tuesday, Dec. 10; Mandela’s body will lie in state at government buildings in Pretoria from Wednesday, Dec. 11, until the burial.
He added coming Sunday, Dec. 8, will be a national day of prayer and reflection.
Zuma thanked people from around the world who are sending condolences to Mandela’s family.
Mandela died yesterday at the age of 95.
Mandela’s longtime friend, retired Archbishop Desmond Tutu gave a touching tribute at St. George’s Cathedral in Cape Town earlier today.
“The sun will rise tomorrow and the next day and the next,” he says. “It may not be as bright as yesterday, but life will carry on. To think that he went to prison as an angry, relatively young, young man and he emerged as this incredible icon of magnanimity.”
Tutu says South Africans shouldn’t build a memorial to Mandela, they should be a memorial.
African leaders to hold moment of silence to remember Mandela at summit in Paris
African leaders meeting in Paris for a summit today are holding a moment of silence to mark the passing of Nelson Mandela, a leader who inspired many of them.
Mandela died yesterday, just as leaders from nearly every country in Africa were gathering for a summit on how Africans could take a more active role in bringing peace and security to the troubled continent. It was a cause that was dear to Mandela, who was often involved in brokering peace deals in African conflicts.
“He is comparable to a great baobab — this invincible tree under which everyone shelters,” said Guinee President Alpha Conde. “And when this baobab falls, we find ourselves exposed.”
