Minister at the President’s Office Hussain Shareef has paid final respects to former South African President Nelson Mandela on behalf of the Maldivian people.
The former president lay in state in Pretoria for three days, before being flown to his home town of Qunu for burial. A reported 100,000 people journeyed to see the president as he lay in the Union Buildings of the country’s administrative capital.
Shareef offered condolences to Mandela’s family on behalf of President Abdulla Yameen and Vice President Dr Mohamed Jameel Ahmed – both of whom had signed the Maldives’ own book of condolences for the leader Yameen described as“the greatest statesman the world has seen”.
Yameen ordered the Maldives national flag to be flown at half-mast the weekend following Mandela’s passing.