Nelson Mandela Dies
'He passed on peacefully around 20:15 on the 5th of December 2013. He is now resting'
WASHINGTON DC — "Although we knew this day was going to come, nothing can diminish our sense of a profound and enduring loss. His tireless struggle for freedom earned him the respect of the world. His humility, passion and humanity, earned him their love," he said. "Our thoughts are with the millions of people across the world who embraced Madiba as their own and who saw his cause as their cause. Our nation has lost its greatest son. Yet what made Nelson Mandela great was precisely what made him human. We saw in him what we seek in ourselves and in him we saw so much of ourselves," said President Zuma. Zuma said Mandela would receive a full state funeral. He ordered flags to be flown at half mast. Mandela, one of the most respected African leaders, spent 27 years in jail for challenging the then Africanist regime's political system of apartheid or separate development. The news came as no surprise - Mandela had been in and out of hospital for much of this year, and the 95 year old had lived a challenging and stressful life. Nelson Mandela was once a young firebrand leader of the then-banned African National Congress, which opposed the racist, white-led apartheid regime. Mandela led the group’s armed wing, an act that landed him in prison for 27 years. Those were his, and South Africa’s, darkest days. But the charismatic Mandela managed to keep his resolve and lead his struggle from his jail cell. He emerged triumphant, having helped bring down apartheid and being elected president in the nation’s first all-inclusive elections in 1994. He served one presidential term, but it is for his lifelong struggle that he will be remembered - as a fighter and a prisoner turned statesman and peacemaker. Mandela was the first black South African president who served only one term after spending 27 years at Robben Island.