A countless number of tributes in honor of ex-South African president Nelson Mandela have come from around the world since
he passed away last Thursday. Latin American leaders and Nobel Laureates such as
Adolfo Pérez Esquivel and
Oscar Arias praised the iconic anti-apartheid campaigner who died at the age of 95. Meanwhile, one of the most unique celebrations of Mandela’s life and legacy took place in a Colombian neighborhood named after him.
Last weekend, dozens of residents of the Nelson Mandela neighborhood of Cartagena held a vigil and “symbolic funeral” in his name.
Religious leaders, community activists and admirers of the late leader took part in the activities that included an honorary mass and a funeral march with a coffin representing Mandela. They chanted “Freedom, freedom, Nelson Mandela you are freedom” as they walked to a local soccer field.
“We wanted to do this symbolic funeral in order to remember with each step the achievements of our South Africa leader,” said Abad Berrio, one of the attendees.
“We’re getting together to remember him and
teach the children what he represented as well as the peace we hope to achieve,” Berrio added.
The neighborhood was founded on the day Mandela was elected as president of South Africa in December 1994. Most of the 40,000 residents are Afro-Colombians and had been displaced from other parts of the country mired in a decades-long armed conflict. Yet the Barrio Nelson Mandela is one of the most impoverished and crime-ridden neighborhoods in Cartagena with residents suffer from poor social services and in absence of urgent medical care.
The problems of the Mandela neighborhood have not gone unnoticed by local civic leaders like Wailer Herrón who hope to
draw encouragement from the legacy of the late activist: