Nelson Mandela was last night in hospital in South Africa after
being airlifted from his isolated village home.
The 94-year-old former president was thought to be having tests in
a military hospital in Pretoria.
Officials said there was no cause for alarm, saying he needed
medical attention from time to time ‘which is consistent for his
age’.
South African President Jacob Zuma said yesterday: ‘We wish
Madiba [Mandela’s tribal name] all the best. The medical team is
assured of our support as they look after and ensure the comfort of
our beloved founding president of a free and democratic South
Africa.’
But there was widespread concern about this latest health scare –
the third since Mr Mandela retired from public life in 2004.
He was treated for a respiratory infection in January 2011, and
last February had a procedure for abdominal problems.
The Nobel Peace Prize winner has not been seen in public since the
celebrations at the end of the football World Cup in Johannesburg two
years ago.
Mr Mandela has been frail for some time and visitors to his home
have said his memory is failing. He was last photographed in August
with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton at his home.
Mr Mandela lives quietly at home in the Eastern Cape village
of Qunu, where he was born. His two-storey house on the outskirts of
Qunu is known to contain medical equipment for use in an emergency.
The medical preparations were made for him when the house
underwent renovation and refurbishment during the past year in
readiness for Mr Mandela’s complete withdrawal from public
life.
A family friend told The Mail on Sunday last night: ‘His trip to
hospital this time appears to be more serious than on previous
occasions, as he is clearly in need of more help than is available at
the house.
'We
trust that he will have the very best of medical attention in
hospital.’
Any journey for the former president creates concern as Qunu
is so far off the beaten track. The tiny hamlet of rolling hills,
traditional mud huts, a church and school, is more than 25 miles from
the nearest airport at Mthatha.
Mr Mandela will have been taken by road to the airport where a
military plane would have been standing by ready for the
hour-and-a-half flight to Pretoria.
Rumours were circulating yesterday that a military plane that
crashed in the Drakens-berg Mountains in severe weather conditions on
Wednesday had been carrying a medical team and medicines for Mr
Mandela.
The Douglas C-47 Dakota came down in mountains near Ladysmith,
killing all 11 passengers and crew.
The trade union of the South African Security Forces put out a
report on the crash, claiming a connection to Mr Mandela’s illness,
however this was later denied by the country’s Defence Department.
Mr
Mandela is revered in South Africa as the country’s first black
president, a post he held from 1994 to 1999. He gained worldwide
acclaim for his skill in bringing about reconciliation between the
country’s various racial groups.
He became an icon of the struggle against apartheid during a
27-year prison sentence in Cape Town’s notorious Robben Island,
before his release in 1990.
In prison he had remained the moral leader of the African National
Congress – an organisation banned by South Africa’s racist
apartheid government – smuggling out letters of encouragement
and support to his followers from his cell, which is now visited by
tourists from all over the world.
In recent years he has raised millions for the Nelson Mandela
Children’s Foundation to improve the lives of deprived children in
South Africa.
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