Former South African President Nelson Mandela remained in hospital Monday morning, but the Government has kept mum on his condition since he was rushed to a clinic over the weekend.
Mandela was hospitalised early Saturday with what the government says is a recurring lung infection. Members of his family were seen exiting a medical clinic in Pretoria over the weekend.
It was Mandela’s fourth hospitalisation since December.
Presidential spokesman Mac Maharaj said Mandela was breathing on his own Saturday, but he called his condition “serious.” Many South Africans prayed for Mandela on Sunday. The country is increasingly coming to grips with the reality that the father of the modern nation is mortal and ailing.
“We wish Madiba a speedy recovery, but I think what is important is that his family must release him,” Mandela’s friend and former jailmate Andrew Mlangeni, 87, told the Sunday Times, using the liberation hero’s clan name.
“Once the family releases him, the people of South Africa will follow. We will say thank you, god, you have given us this man, and we will release him too,” said Mlangeni.
But on social media, in churches and on the street many still express hope that the 94-year-old Nobel peace laureate will return home.
Mandela’s lungs were damaged during many years as a political prisoner, in part because of hard labour in quarries. He contracted tuberculosis during the 1980s.
South Africa’s first black president spent 27 years behind bars for his role in the struggle against white-minority rule.
After being released from jail in 1990, he pushed ahead with an agenda promoting racial reconciliation, cementing his status as an icon of peace and transformation for South Africans and many around the globe.