Nelson Mandela is laid to rest in his childhood home after four hour service and full tribal burial rites including guests drinking blood of slaughtered ox

Goodbye to an icon: Nelson Mandela's coffin is slowly lowered into the ground in the hills close to where he grew up at the small, private burial today in Qunu as military salute and mourners watch the poignant moment

Poignant: Nelson Mandela's coffin was carried to his grave and then the flag of the country he loved so ardently was removed and handed to his widow Graca Machel

United in grief: Mandela's widow Graca Michel and his ex-wife Winnie Mandela tearfully comforted one another as they sat next to president Jacob Zuma and Mandela's grandson Mandla as he was laid to rest

Nelson Mandela has today been buried in the remote village where the anti-apartheid icon grew up after his four-hour state funeral this morning.

South Africa's first black President died in his Johannesburg home on December 5, at the age of 95 after a long battle with illness and he was laid to rest in his grave in Qunu in Eastern Cape province. 

Troops lined the route up to the hillside as Mandela was carried on a gun carriage to the private burial on his family’s estate.

As his body was placed on the grave the South African flag on the coffin was removed and handed to Mandela's widow Graca Machel, who was comforted by his ex-wife Winnie Mandela.

A fly-past then followed accompanied by a 21-gun salute and a solitary trumpeter played the Last Post while his body was lowered into the ground.

As he was buried a military chaplain said: 'Yours was truly a long walk to freedom, and now you have achieved the ultimate freedom, in the bosom of your maker.'

His funeral was also marked by his Xhosa tribe whose elders will have slaughtered an ox to accompany his spirit after burial, while guests would be asked to drink its blood from a communal bowl.

But it is understood dignitaries such as Prince Charles were probably offered the animal's meat to eat instead after it was cooked on an open fire.

Mandela's family also talked to him until he was lowered into the earth and will have said 'Madiba, we are now burying you,' a tradition followed so the souls of the dead know where they are going.

A nation in mourning: Three helicopters carrying South African flags fly over the burial site today as a much smaller crowd of mourners watched the great statesman laid to rest after ten days of official mourning

Air force tribute: A squadron of South African jets flew across the skies above the Eastern Cape hills where Mandela spent his formative years

Burial: The military carry Mandela's body along the pathway to the area where South Africa's beloved son's burial site in Qunu

Procession: After the funeral South Africa's military took over and followed Mandela's coffin up the hill to his family plot where he was buried

Funeral procession: After the four hour memorial service Mandela's body on a gun carriage led by troops and followed by his family in cars

Arm in arm: Mandela's second wife Winnie Madikizela Mandela (far right) and the statesman's widow Graca Machel (centre) walk together as he is about to be buried

Final journey: The coffin of former South African President Nelson Mandela is carried by military personnel at the end of his funeral service in his ancestral village of Qunu in the Eastern Cape

SOURCE: The daily mail Uk