As millions of people in South Africa and across the world feared for the worst, the family of critically ill anti-apartheid icon, Nelson Mandela, gathered around his hospital bedside Monday
“Former President Mandela remains in a critical condition in hospital,” Agence France Presse (AFP) quoted South African President Jacob Zuma as saying in an address televised to the world and an anxious nation.
“The doctors are doing everything possible to ensure his well being and comfort,” Zuma added.
Mandela, the hero of black South Africans’ battle for freedom during 27 years in apartheid’s jails, was rushed to hospital on June 8 with a recurring lung infection.
Agency reports indicated that despite intensive treatment at Pretoria’s Mediclinic Heart Hospital, the 94-year-old’s condition appears to have suddenly and dramatically deteriorated.
His former 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 Monday.
Their visits came amid heightened fears for the former statesman’s health.
“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 commended 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.
Mandela was last seen in public in 2010 at the football World Cup finals in South Africa.
“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, when the Nobel Peace Prize winner was asleep.
“(We) saw him and then we had a bit of discussion with the doctors and his wife Graca Machel,” Zuma said.
Mandela, who became South Africa’s first black president in 1994 after almost half a century 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 decline.
“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, where flowers, cards and messages of support piled up.
In Soweto, the township where Mandela lived for more than a decade, James Nhlapo said South Africa must accept Mandela will not live forever.
“There will soon come a time when all the medical help won’t work. We have to face that sad reality now,” he said as he served customers in his grocery store.
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.”
Well wishes have also come from abroad. In Washington the White House said its thoughts and prayers were with Mandela.
U.S. President Barack Obama leaves tomorrow on a tour of Africa that will take him to South Africa as well as Senegal and Tanzania.
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 negotiated an end to white rule and won the country’s first fully democratic elections.
As president, he guided the country away from internecine racial and tribal violence.
It was 18 years ago to the day yesterday, in a deeply symbolic moment, he handed the rugby world cup to a victorious Springboks captain Francois Pienaar.
The impact of a black president appearing at this, the most white of South African sporting occasions, still reverberates today.
“Mandela soared above the petty confines of party politics,” said political commentator Daniel Silke.
His extraordinary life story, quirky sense of humour and lack of bitterness to his former oppressors has ensured global appeal for the charismatic leader.
The South African government has been criticised amid revelations that the military ambulance that carried Mandela to hospital developed engine trouble, resulting in a 40-minute delay until a replacement ambulance arrived.
The presidency said Mandela suffered no harm during the wait for another ambulance to take him from his Johannesburg home to a specialist heart clinic in Pretoria 55 kilometres (30 miles) away.
“There were seven doctors in the convoy who were in full control of the situation throughout the period. He had expert medical care,” said Zuma.
*Guardian
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