Messages for Nelson Mandela outside his Johannesburg home yesterday.
SOWETO: South Africans prayed for Nelson Mandela’s recovery yesterday as the 94-year-old former president spent a second day in hospital with a recurring lung infection.
Mandela, a global symbol of triumph over adversity and of reconciliation who became South Africa’s first black leader in 1994 after the defeat of apartheid, was hospitalised early on Saturday when his already frail health worsened.
It is his fourth hospital stay since December and the government said on Saturday that his condition was “serious”. During previous hospital visits it had highlighted his “good spirits”.
The government had yet to give an update, stoking concern on social media and among the millions of South Africans who revere Mandela for his decades of struggle against white-minority rule and for steering the continent’s biggest economy to all-race elections.
Presidency spokesman Mac Maharaj said he would issue a statement about Mandela’s health if doctors gave him any information. Maharaj had said on Saturday Mandela was breathing on his own, calling that a “positive sign”.
Hundreds gathered to pray for Mandela at Sunday Mass at the Regina Mundi Catholic church in the sprawling Johannesburg township of Soweto. “We wish him speedy recovery, he must get well,” Soweto resident Mlugisi Sekhosana said. “We know what he did for us in South Africa. All the nation, black and white, we wish him well.”
The Sunday Times newspaper took a sombre tone, with the headline “It’s time to let him go”, quoting a longtime friend of Mandela’s, Andrew Mlangeni.
“The family must release him so that God may have his own way. They must release him spiritually and put their faith in the hands of God,” the newspaper quoted Mlangeni as saying. “Once the family releases him, the people of South Africa will follow.”
Reuters
