Nelson Mandela, the founding president of the non-racial and democratic South Africa and among the most reconciliatory politicians the world has ever seen, died on Thursday night at the age of 95 after a recurring lung infection.

The iconic anti-apartheid leader who served 27 years on Robben Island, the maximum prison on South Africa’s Atlantic seaboard, had been ill since late year.

He was admitted to a heart hospital in Pretoria in June this year after a recurring lung infection.

He remained in hospital for more than 100 days before he was discharged to recuperate from his home a couple of months back.

Thirty minutes before Thursday midnight (South African time) the South African President Jacob Zuma told the world that Mandela died peacefully in the company of his family at around 20h 50.

“He is now resting. He is now at peace. Our nation has lost its greatest son. Our people have lost a father. Although we knew that this day would come, nothing can diminish our sense of a profound and enduring loss,” Zuma said.

“This is the moment of our deepest sorrow. Our nation has lost its greatest son. Yet, what made Nelson Mandela great was precisely what made him human. We saw in him what we seek in ourselves,” Zuma continued.

US President Barack Obama paid what has been described as a “solemn tribute” to Mandela last night.

“Through his fierce dignity and unbending will to sacrifice his own freedom for the freedom of others, he transformed South Africa and moved all of us,” Obama said in a White House address that was beamed all over the world shortly after the death of Mandela.

David Cameron, the British Prime Minister, addressing the media in front of 10 Downing Street last night, said Mandela was not only a hero of “our time, but a hero of all time.”