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| Nelson Mandela |
Family gathers around his bedside
By Paul Ohia with agency report
Anti-apartheid icon and former president of South Africa,
Nelson Mandela, remained in a critical condition in hospital yesterday, leaving
millions of his
countrymen and admirers across the world keeping vigil
and praying, even as they feared the worst.
“Former President Mandela remains in a critical condition
in hospital.
The doctors are doing everything possible to ensure his
wellbeing and comfort,” President Jacob Zuma was quoted by the Agence France
Presse (AFP) as saying Monday.
Mandela, the hero of black South Africans’ battle for
freedom who spent 27 years in jail during the apartheid regime, was rushed to
hospital on June 8 with a recurrent lung infection.
Despite intensive treatment at Pretoria's Mediclinic
Heart Hospital, the 94-year-old’s condition appeared to have suddenly
deteriorated over the last 48 hours.
“All of us in the country should accept that Madiba is
now old,” Zuma said, using Mandela’s clan name.
“I think what we need to do as a country is to pray for
him to be well and that the doctors do their work.”
Zuma hailed the life of a man seen as the father of the
nation and globally as a moral beacon that continues to shine long after he
retired from public life.
“He is the father of democracy and this is the man who
fought and sacrificed his life,” said Zuma, who spent 10 years in jail on
Robben Island at the same time as Mandela.
Zuma visited Mandela on Sunday evening.
“Given the hour that we got to the hospital it was late,
he was already asleep,” Zuma said. “(We) saw him and then we had a bit of
discussion with the doctors and his wife, Graca Machel.”
Mandela, who became South Africa's first black president
in 1994 to end almost 50 years of apartheid rule, is due to celebrate his 95th
birthday on July 18.
He has been hospitalised four times since December,
mostly for the pulmonary condition that has plagued him for years.
As the world looked on, South Africans resigned
themselves to the inevitability of Mandela's death.
Flowers, cards, balloons and messages of support were
left outside the gate of his Pretoria hospital, where family members were
gathered.
“Unfortunately, there is nothing we can do but to pray
for him and the doctors that are helping him,” said Phathani Mbath outside the
hospital.
In Mthatha, a rural town in the region where Mandela grew
up, there was also a sense of anxious resignation. ”It is not up to us to
decide what happens now. There is nothing we can do,” said Aphiwe Ngesi a
teacher in Mthatha. “All we can do is hope for the best.”
Meanwhile, Mandela’s family gathered around his hospital
bedside yesterday as millions in South Africa and across the world feared for
the worst.
Ex-wife Winnie Madikizela-Mandela — herself a figurehead
of the anti-apartheid struggle — and daughters Zindzi Mandela-Motlhajwa and
Zenani Mandela-Dlamini were among those who flocked to the hospital on Monday.
Their visits, while common since Mandela was admitted 17
days ago, come amid heightened fears for the former statesman’s health.
In Washington, the White House said its thoughts and
prayers were with Mandela, as US President Barack Obama prepares to visit South
Africa.
“We have seen the latest reports from the South African
government that former President Mandela is in critical condition,” National
Security Council spokeswoman Caitlin Hayden said.
“Our thoughts and prayers are with him, his family and
the people of South Africa,” she added.
Obama leaves tomorrow on a tour of Africa that will take
him to Senegal, South Africa and Tanzania. Zuma said the visit would go ahead.
The possibility of a meeting between the first black
presidents of both South Africa and the United States has been hotly
anticipated, but the White House has said it will defer to Mandela’s family.
Upon his release from jail in 1990, in one of the
defining moments of the 20th century, Mandela won the country’s first fully
democratic elections.
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