JOHANNESBURG (AP) —Taking a final journey to his home village, the remains of Nelson Mandela were honored amid pomp and ceremony Saturday at an air base in the capital before being flown aboard a military plane bound for this simple village in the wide-open spaces of eastern South Africa.
At the airport near Qunu there was a buzz of activity, with military vehicles including SUVs and armored personnel carriers driving around as anticipation built over the coming-home of South Africa's most famous figure. Residents and people who had traveled for hours thronged a road leading to Qunu, singing and dancing as Mandela T-shirts were handed out.
"We got up this morning at 2 a.m. and drove from Port Elizabeth — it's about seven hours — and we got here now. We're waiting on to show our last respects to Madiba," said Ebrahim Jeftha, using Mandela's clan name.
Mandela had been imprisoned for 27 years for opposing racist apartheid and emerged in 1990 to forge a new democratic South Africa by promoting forgiveness and reconciliation. He became president in 1994 after South Africa's first all-race democratic elections.
Soldiers in full gear, male and female, were stationed on foot on either side of the road from the airport in Mthatha as cows grazed nearby. Some civilians were also already lining the route, shielding themselves from the sun with umbrellas.
Soldiers in full gear, male and female, were stationed on foot on either side of the road from the airport in Mthatha as cows grazed nearby. Some civilians were also already lining the route, shielding themselves from the sun with umbrellas.
Mandela had longed to spend his final months in his beloved rural village but instead he had spent them in a hospital in Pretoria and then in his home in Johannesburg where he had remained in critical condition, suffering from lung problems and other ailments, until his death.
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