Former South African President Nelson Mandela will be laid to rest at his ancestral village of Qunu in the Eastern Cape on Dec. 15, President Jacob Zuma said on Friday.
A week of national mourning would include an open-air memorial service at Johannesburg's Soccer City stadium - the site of the 2010 World Cup final - on Dec. 10, Zuma said.
Nelson Mandela was hailed on Thursday as a champion of reconciliation who "achieved more than could be expected of any man," as people the world over mourned his death and celebrated his triumphant fight against apartheid in South Africa.
"Today he's gone home, and we've lost one of the most influential, courageous and profoundly good human beings that any of us will share time with on this earth," U.S. President Barack Obama said of Mandela, who became South Africa's first black president.
Obama, who himself made history when he was elected in 2008 as America's first black president, noted his first involvement in anything political was a protest against apartheid, the system of white rule in South Africa.
"He achieved more than could be expected of any man," said Obama, who is expected to go to South Africa for Mandela's state funeral. The flag over the White House was lowered to half-staff after Mandela's death.
"Nelson Mandela was a hero of our time," British Prime Minister David Cameron wrote on Twitter. "A great light has gone out in the world.
A somber South African President Jacob Zuma, announcing that Mandela died at his Johannesburg home on Thursday after a prolonged lung infection, said, "Our people have lost a father.
"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," Zuma added.
Mourners gathered outside Mandela's home and spontaneous tributes sprang up around the world.
The famed Apollo Theater in the Harlem neighborhood of Manhattan, which Mandela visited in 1990, lit its marquee with the words: "In memory of Nelson Mandela ... He changed our world."
In Washington, flowers and candles were set at the base of a statue of Mandela outside the South African Embassy.
Dijon Anderson, a teacher from Bowie, Maryland, who came with his sons to pay respects, said, "I feel privileged to even say that I lived during the same time he was here."
At "Madiba," a Brooklyn, New York, bar called after Mandela's Xhosa clan name, mourners gathered to remember him.
Denis Du Preez, the bar's co-owner and a native South African, said he planned to release lit lanterns into the sky in Mandela's honor. The bar, a home away from home for Africans, is decorated with Zulu designs and large posters featuring Mandela's face.
REUTERS
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