JOHANNESBURG - Flags across several continents fell to half-staff early Friday, and South Africans poured into the streets at daybreak in mourning for Nelson Mandela, a liberator whose life spanned nearly a century and whose model for dignity and peacemaking was admired across the world.

The death Thursday of Mandela, 95, spurred the rarest of outpourings - one nearly universal and unanimous, as South African President Jacob Zuma announced a national week of mourning before a state funeral is held Dec. 15.

Mandela’s face appeared on newspaper front pages from Berlin to Beirut, often with just a few somber words and the years of his life: 1918-2013. His death spurred social-media tributes in the United States and China.

In South Africa, where Mandela rose from prisoner to president, crowds gathered to sing and dance outside his home in Houghton, an upscale Johannesburg neighborhood, where he died with his family beside him. Makeshift tributes of candles, flowers and photographs were piled against trees and buildings. In Soweto - the home to some of the worst apartheid-era strife - black and white South Africans joined hands in mourning.

Crowds also congregated in a mall in Sandton, where a huge statue of Mandela standsin a square named after him. Mourners placed bouquets of flowers and notes near the statue. South Africans gathered in Pretoria, the seat of government, to remember him as well. Media outlets in South Africa reported that Mandela’s body had been transported to a military hospital in Pretoria. There, it will most likely be embalmed.

Zuma said Friday that a memorial service would be held Tuesday at FNB Stadium in Johannesburg. Mandela’s body will lie in state in Pretoria from Wednesday through Friday before he is buried in Qunu, his rural birthplace, two days later.

President Barack Obama, who like Mandela was his country’s first black president, said: “Today he’s gone home, and we’ve lost one of the most influential, courageous and profoundly good human beings that any of us will share time with on this Earth. He no longer belongs to us; he belongs to the ages.”

Obama ordered U.S. flags flown at half-staff until sunset Monday to honor Mandela.

The White House says Obama and first lady Michelle Obama will travel to South Africa next week to pay respects to Mandela.

White House press secretary Jay Carney says the Obamas will participate in memorial events but didn’t say specifically what day they planned to be in South Africa.

“The messages we have received since last night have heartened and overwhelmed us,” said Mandela’s grandson,Mandla Mandela, on Friday, the first statement from the Mandela family since the death, Agence France-Presse reported. “He is an embodiment of strength, struggle and survival, principles that are cherished by humanity.”

South Africans learned of Mandela’s death late Thursday when Zuma said in an address that the nation’s “greatest son” was “now at peace.” He referred to Mandela as Madiba, his clan name and a term of affection.

On Friday, Zuma said that “we’ll always love Madiba for teaching us that it is possible to overcome hatred and anger in order to build a new nation and a new society.”

Although Mandela had been absent from public life for several years as he battled illness, his death spurred rich tributes from around the world. Some South Africans broke into tears describing Mandela’s importance in televised interviews.

“We collectively claim him as the father of our nation,” retired Anglican bishop Desmond Tutu, a close friend of Mandela’s and a fellow fighter against apartheid, told reporters in Cape Town. “What’s going to happen to us now that our father has died?”

Some analysts have worried for years about a splintering of South Africa in the wake of Mandela’s death because the country is still riven with problems, including a youth unemployment rate near 50 percent and one of the world’s highest income disparities. The reality of multiracial democracy has proved harder and far less equal than many expected when it arrived in 1994, but Mandela always scoffed at the notion his country would face special challenges after his death.

Longtime newscaster Mathatha Tsedu said on a national news channel, “This is a man who had no unfulfilled missions.”

Among Mandela’s global admirers who paid tribute to him Friday was Hillary Rodham Clinton, who wrote on Twitter that he was an “unconquerable soul.”

In public remarks at a women’s forum in Rangoon, Aung San Suu Kyi, the Burmese Nobel Peace Prize winner, said Mandela was a “great human being who raised the standard of humanity.” Cuba’s ruling Communist authorities ordered a national day of mourning, called Mandela a“model revolutionary.”

Mandela had credited Cuba’s Cold War-era military interventions in Africa in the 1970s and 1980s with helping to defeat apartheid. There was no immediate statement on his death from the ailing Castro, 87.

Mandela’s death comes amid reminders of his many sacrifices, depicted in Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom, a biopic based on his best-selling autobiography.

Information for this article was contributed by Simon Denyer, Will Englund, Jason Rezaian, Annie Gowen and Erin Cunningham of The Washington Post.

Front Section, Pages 8 on 12/07/2013