Former Kenyan prime minister and revered long-time opposition leader Raila Odinga was buried in the west of the country after a service attended by thousands on Sunday.<\/p>\n
“Now finally Baba is home,” his son, Raila Odinga junior, said beside his father’s casket, draped in the Kenyan flag.<\/p>\n
The burial concluded days of memorials that at times led to chaos, with at least five mourners dying at other events and dozens injured at a public viewing on Saturday.<\/p>\n
Odinga died on Wednesday aged 80 in an Indian hospital.<\/p>\n
He became prime minister after the bloody and disputed 2007 election, and was the main opposition leader for many years, losing five presidential campaigns, most recently three years ago.<\/p>\n
He retains a devotional following in the west of the country. Former US President Barack Obama, whose Kenyan family hails from the same region, called Odinga a “true champion of democracy”. <\/p>\n
Politicians, relatives and throngs of his supporters waved Kenyan flags and held his picture aloft as they gathered at Sunday’s memorial service, which was held at a university in Bondo.<\/p>\n
“Even in the grave, he still remains our hero,” one mourner told the AFP news agency.<\/p>\n
Military personnel carried Odinga’s coffin to the front, where a choir sang and speakers, including Kenyan President William Ruto, remembered him.<\/p>\n
“His courage, his vision, and his unyielding faith in our collective destiny will forever illuminate the path of our nation,” Ruto said in a post on Facebook about the event.<\/p>\n
“His return to Bondo was not merely a homecoming; it was the embrace of a grateful Republic bidding farewell to one of its greatest sons, a patriot who devoted his life to the cause of justice, democracy, and the enduring unity of our beloved Kenya.”<\/p>\n
Odinga was buried nearby at his late father’s homestead, where there is a family mausoleum.<\/p>\n
Multiple memorial events had already taken place, including a state funeral in Nairobi on Friday and a public viewing in a stadium in his home city of Kisumu on Saturday.<\/p>\n
At the viewing, tens of thousands filed past his open coffin, many crying out the phrase “we are orphans”.<\/p>\n