South African anti-aparthied hero Nelson Mandela has died, South African President Jacob Zuma said today.
"The founding president of our democratic nation has departed", Zuma said in a live address.
"He passed on peacfuelly in the company of his family aruond 20.50 on the 5th of December. He is now resting, he is now at peace."
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"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."
Flags across the nation will be lowered to half mast, he said.
Mandela, who was elected South Africa's first black president after spending nearly three decades in prison, had been receiving intensive care since September.
His condition deteriorated and he died following complications from the lung infection, with his family by his side.
Friends and relatives of the South African icon had earlier gathered at his Johannesburg home where the 95-year-old was said to be on his "death bed".
Two of Mandela's grand-daughters and a close family friend were among those seen entering the house, which was flanked by more than a dozen cars ferrying visitors and military personnel.
Mandela, once a boxer, had a long history of lung problems after contracting tuberculosis while in jail on Robben Island.
His extraordinary life story, quirky sense of humour and lack of bitterness towards his former oppressors ensured global appeal for the charismatic leader.
Once considered a terrorist by the United States and Britain for his support of violence against the apartheid regime, at the time of his death he was an almost unimpeachable moral icon.
The Nobel Peace Prize winner spent 27 years behind bars before being freed in 1990 to lead the African National Congress (ANC) in negotiations with the white minority rulers which culminated in the first multi-racial elections in 1994.
A victorious Mandela served a single term as president before taking up a new role as a roving elder statesman and leading AIDS campaigner before finally retiring from public life in 2004.
"When he emerged from prison people discovered that he was all the things they had hoped for and more," fellow Nobel Peace laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu once said.
"He is by far the most admired and revered statesperson in the world and one of the greatest human beings to walk this earth."
