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| Mandela Back in Hospital With Lung Infection | Mandela Back in Hospital With Lung Infection |
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| JOHANNESBURG – Former South African president Nelson Mandela was admitted to hospital late Wednesday to be treated for a recurring lung infection, according to the country’s current president, Jacob Zuma, in a statement from his office on Thursday. | |
| It was the third time that Mr. Mandela, 94, South Africa’s first black president and former leader of the dominant African National Congress, had been hospitalized in the past four months. | |
| Mr. Mandela spent 19 days in December hospitalized for a lung infection and what government officials described as the surgical removal of gall stones. He was readmitted for what was termed a scheduled check up earlier this month. | |
| Mr. Mandela has struggled with lung problems since he contracted tuberculosis during his 27 years in prison during the apartheid era when his incarceration became a potent symbol in South Africa and around the world of the struggle to throw off a codified system of racial domination devised by the country’s white rulers. | |
| His name still resonates as an emblem of his efforts to transcend the decades of racial division and create what South Africans called a rainbow nation. | |
| Mr. Mandela led the A.N.C. through the negotiations that led to the first fully democratic elections in 1994 and the end of white minority rule. | |
| “We appeal to the people of South Africa and the world to pray for our beloved Madiba and his family and to keep them in their thoughts,” Mr. Zuma’s statement said on Thursday, referring to Mr. Mandela by his clan name. “We have full confidence in the medical team and know that they will do everything possible to ensure recovery.” | |
| Mr. Mandela retired from public life in 2004 and was last seen publicly in 2010, when he briefly appeared at the opening of the World Cup soccer tournament, which South Africa hosted. But he receives frequent visits from old friends. When he was discharged from hospital in December, Mac Maharaj, a spokesman for South Africa’s Mr. Zuma, said that Mr. Mandela would be staying at home in a suburb of Johannesburg and receiving high-level care there. | |
| His extended illness in December ended a year in which South Africa faced perhaps the most serious unrest since the end of apartheid. The A.N.C. was deeply divided over a leadership struggle, and a wave of wildcat strikes by angry mine workers — followed by a harsh police crackdown against them — dented the country’s image as a bastion of peace and reconciliation. | |
| Mr. Zuma’s statement on Thursday said: “Former President Nelson Mandela was admitted to hospital just before midnight, 27 March, due to the recurrence of his lung infection.” | |
| “Doctors are attending to him, ensuring that he has the best possible expert medical treatment and comfort,” it continued. | |
| “President Zuma has wished Madiba a speedy recovery,” the statement said. | |
| “The Presidency appeals once again for understanding and privacy in order to allow space to the doctors to do their work.” | |
Alan Cowell contributed reporting from London. |