MONTEVIDEO, May 19 (Xinhua) -- Uruguayans on Tuesday said the last good-bye here to their writer and poet Mario Benedetti, who died on Sunday at 88 years old.

    Benedetti, who was considered one of Latin America's most important 20th-century writers, had been ill with chronic intestinal and breathing problems.

    Uruguayan Education and Culture Minister Maria Simon said that "this multitude is the biggest honor a public person could have." The Uruguayan government declared a national mourning.

    Musician Daniel Viglietti, Benedetti's close friend, said at the funeral that "he was a role-model man in his modesty," adding that Benedetti's "pen left our soul full of simple verses."

    Benedetti's remains will be at the Buceo Cemetery in Montevideo together with those of his wife Luz Lopez Alegre, who died in 2006.

    Uruguayan President Tabare Vazquez, governors, artists, professor and even fans attended his funeral.

    Vazquez said that "a person like Mario never dies, he is sowed."

    Uruguayan former president Julio Mario Sanginetti (1985-1990 and 1995-2000) said that Benedetti "achieved the people's dimension of the poetry, in that area of less interest in the society and he achieved to approach youth to the poetry."

    Other Latin American countries also said good-bye to Benedetti.

    In Mexico, governmental culture institutions expressed on Tuesday their condolence for Benedetti's death.

    In a joint communique, the Mexican institutions said that "with great knowledge of the Spanish language, he left poems and novels that are an invaluable heritage of the Hispano-American works."

    The Ecuadorian government on Tuesday sent a condolences letter to Vazquez, saying that "a deep melancholy has reached us since yesterday and forever in our lives. The physical disappearance of Mario Benedetti leaves us a deep hollow in our sensibility and in the deepest of our Americas sprit."

    Cubans also paid homage to the Uruguayan writer. Benedetti funded the Literature Investigations Center from the House of the Americas in Havana.

    President of House of the Americas Roberto Fernandez said that "so many things among us have Mario's mark, that we do not want to forget them. He will live as long as his House of the Americas lives, which he as very few contributed to make it truth."

    Benedetti wrote more than 80 poetry and prose books, which were translated to more than 20 languages. Benedetti was part of the writers group called "Generation of the 45" and received awards like Queen Sofia Prize Ibero American Poetry in 1999.