Mandela's son died of AIDS

A frail-looking &to=http:// english.pravda.ru/world/20/91/367/13009_Mandela.html ' target=_blank>Nelson Mandela buried his last son in a remote South African field on Saturday, wearing a red AIDS ribbon to symbolize the fight against the disease that killed him a week ago.

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Thousands of people, including &to=http:// english.pravda.ru/main/2002/09/16/36660.html ' target=_blank>South Africa's political elite, gathered near Mandela's childhood home in Qunu, where family members held a vigil overnight for his son Makgatho, 54.

The 86-year-old anti-apartheid icon, holding a cane and supported by his wife Graca Machel, looked pained as he walked slowly to drop a yellow rose and handful of earth into the grave, where Makgatho was buried near his mother, brother and sister, informs Reuters.

According to the Xinhua News, the 86-year-old &to=http:// english.pravda.ru/main/2000/10/09/152.html ' target=_blank>Nobel Peace Prize winner has been widely praised since he announced his son's AIDS status at a press conference a few hours after his death at a Johannesburg clinic.

Mandela said he started his campaign more than three years ago to encourage people not to hide &to=http:// english.pravda.ru/main/18/90/360/14662_aids.html ' target=_blank>HIV/AIDS in order to make people understand HIV was an ordinary thing.

"To come out and to say somebody has died because of HIV...people will stop regarding it as something extraordinary, as an illness reserved to people who are going to go to hell and not heaven," Mandela said then.

Mandela's successor, President Thabo Mbeki, who attended the funeral, has been accused of holding back the campaign against AIDS, South Africa's number one killer, before finally announcing a plan to provide free drugs to those most in need.

Mandela now has three surviving children: Makaziwe, a daughter from his first marriage, and Zindzi and Zenani, two daughters from his second marriage to Winnie Madikizela-Mandela from whom he separated in 1992, writes the Turkish Press.

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