JOHANNESBURG // About 50,000 people filed past the body of Nelson Mandela on Friday to pay their final respects to South Africa’s first black president who was lying in state for a final day at the Union Buildings in Pretoria.
Police had to turn away thousands of mourners as they attempted to see Mandela on the last day of his three days of lying in state.
But few hundred extra people through barriers at the Union Buildings after the cut-off time because of the long wait they had endured, police spokesman Solomon Makgale said.
The total number of people who viewed Mandela’s coffin was 100,000 over the three days.
Mandela, who died on December 5 at the age of 95, will be buried in Qunu in the Eastern Cape province on Sunday in a ceremony that will be attended by about 5,000 people, including the UK’s Prince Charles and Reverend Jesse Jackson, the US civil-rights activist. The funeral will end 10 days of memorial events for Mandela, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1993 for helping to negotiate a peaceful end to white minority rule under apartheid.
The lines of people “is a constant reminder to all of us that Madiba belonged to the people and it is only correct that he returned to the people before his journey back to Qunu,” Themba Matanzima, a spokesman for the Mandela family, told reporters in Johannesburg, referring to Mandela by his clan name.
Lines stretched for miles outside the gardens to the entrance to the Union Buildings as thousands of mourners, many carrying umbrellas to shield themselves from the sun, waited to pay their respects to Mandela. Women dressed in traditional outfits and the green and black colours of the ruling African National Congress sang as the hearse carrying his casket draped in the South African flag passed by.
“I could not see him while he was still alive, I must come to see his face one last time,” Fridah Shezi-Chabalala, 73, who woke up at 4am, said as she waited with her granddaughter Tumi.
Mandla Mandela, the Mandela’s grandson, sat with the coffin following a tradition that the deceased is not left alone until burial, according to General Themba Templeton Matanzima, the family’s spokesman.
A nine-metre statue of Mandela was being prepared for its unveiling on December 16. The statue, which has its arms outstretched, is located in the gardens leading up to the Union Buildings. The face and the arms of the bronze statue remained covered today.
The South African government said on Friday it is aware of reports that the bogus sign language interpreter at Mandela’s memorial once faced a murder charge, and said he is being investigated.
Phumla Williams of the government communications office said the government is investigating Thamsanqa Jantjie and how he was selected to interpret at the memorial at which he stood close to US President Barack Obama and other leaders.
“We will come back and give a full report,” Ms Williams said of questions surrounding Mr Jantjie.
Mr Jantjie outraged deaf people by making signs they said amounted to gibberish. A South African TV news outlet, eNCA, reported that Mr Jantjie faced a murder charge a decade ago, but it is unknown if the case was concluded. He also reportedly faced other criminal charges.
Bloomberg News with additional reporting by Associated Press
