The casket of former South African President Nelson Mandela is escorted to the funeral ceremony in Qunu on Dec. 15.(Photo: Odd Andersen, AFP/Getty)

Story Highlights

  • White dome-shaped tent houses 4,500 mourners
  • Mandela receives a full military funeral
  • Anti-apartheid icon died on Dec. 5 at age 95
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QUNU, South Africa — South Africa is bringing ten days of mourning to a close Sunday as several thousand guests gathered for the state funeral of the nation's "greatest son" Nelson Mandela.

The anti-apartheid leader is being laid to rest in his ancestral village of Qunu, in the Eastern Cape, and his funeral service is taking place in a huge tent at the family compound on a hillside there.

The ceremony is being attended by guests including senior South African officials, veterans of the fight against white rule and foreign diplomats, including U.S. Ambassador Patrick Gaspard. Britain's Prince Charles, entrepreneur Richard Branson, former Zimbabwean prime minister Morgan Tsvangirai and Oprah Winfrey were also among those attending.

Ahmed Kathrada, Mandela's friend and a fellow prisoner at Robben Island for 26 years, eulogized the former statesman in a moving tribute, recalling the ex-president as a "'tall, healthy, strong man, the boxer, the prisoner who easily wielded pick and shovel." Kathrada said that Mandela "was my elder brother." As he finished speaking, Kathrada said: "My life is in a void and I don't know who to turn to."

In keeping with tribal tradition, Mandela's body will be buried at noon, "when the sun is at its highest and the shadow at its shortest," Cyril Ramaphosa, deputy leader of the country's ruling party, the African National Congress, said during the ceremony.

Mandela's portrait looked over the assembly in the white marquee from behind a bank of 95 candles representing each year of his life. His casket, draped in the national flag, was placed on a carpet of cow skins below a lectern where speakers delivered eulogies.

"I think all of us will agree today the person who lies here is South Africa's greatest son," said Ramaphosa.

Addressing mourners, South African President Jacob Zuma pledged to "continue promoting non-racialism and tolerance in our country and to build a South Africa that truly belongs to all." He said that Sunday's funeral "marks the end of an extraordinary journey that started 95 years ago." As the president took to the podium loud cheers broke out, in contrast to the boos that Zuma received at the memorial service for Mandela in Johannesburg last week.

Ahead of the ceremony, South African military honor guards marched and stood at attention on a dirt road as the guests arrived, and busloads of Zulu tribesman dressed in traditional warrior wear wielded fighting sticks and shields.

After the funeral ceremony, a smaller group of guests will attend Mandela's burial at a family grave site on the estate in Qunu, a rural village in South Africa's southeastern Transkei territory.

The burial will end 10 days of mourning ceremonies that included a massive stadium memorial in Johannesburg and three days during which Mandela's body lay in state in the capital, Pretoria. He died Dec. 5 at the age of 95 in his Johannesburg home.

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Contributing: Associated Press

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