Thousands of Argentines gathered on Thursday at the Casa Rosada presidential palace in Buenos Aires to pay his last respects to Diego Armando Maradona. Maradona will be laid out in the palace for the next few days.
Outside is a long line of grieving Argentines who want to go inside to say goodbye to the deceased legend. Some went to blows with the police who have to manage the enormous flow of people.
Maradona was taken to the presidential palace earlier in the day accompanied by a massive police escort. There he is laid out in a box with the Argentinian flag and a shirt of the national team with ‘his’ number 10 on it.
Watch the arrival of his coffin at the Casa Rosada below:
Maradona died of cardiac arrest on Wednesday while recovering from brain surgery. Argentine President Alberto Fernandéz has declared three days of national mourning.
Argentina can’t believe it
“When it became known that Maradona had died, the internet exploded. There are a lot of tributes,” says NOS correspondent Marc Bessems. “The Argentines just can’t believe their God is gone.”
Bessems continues: “Maradona was recovering in his house in Tigre. There he collapsed. Nine ambulances would have been sent that way, but it was too late.”
Watch in the video carousel below how Argentine television reported the death of Diego Maradona, how the Argentines mourn and how people take to the streets in Naples: