JOHANNESBURG — Nelson Mandela’s health has deteriorated and he is now in critical condition, the South African government said yesterday.
The office of President Jacob Zuma said in a statement that he had visited the 94-year-old anti-apartheid leader at a hospital yesterday evening and was informed by the medical team that Mandela’s condition had become critical in the past 24 hours.
“The doctors are doing everything possible to get his condition to improve and are ensuring that Madiba is well-looked after and is comfortable,” Zuma said in the statement, using Mandela’s clan name.
In yesterday’s statement, Zuma also discussed the government’s acknowledgment a day earlier that an ambulance carrying Mandela to the hospital two weeks ago had engine trouble, requiring the former president to be transferred to another ambulance for his journey to the hospital.
Zuma also met Graca Machel, Mandela’s wife, at the hospital in Pretoria and discussed the former leader’s condition, according to the statement. Zuma was accompanied on the visit by Cyril Ramaphosa, the deputy president of the country’s ruling party, the African National Congress.
Zuma appealed to South Africans to pray for the ailing ex-president, his family and the medical team attending to him.
Mandela was jailed for 27 years under white racist rule and released in 1990. He became South Africa’s first black president in all-race elections in 1994. He was hospitalized on June 8 for what the government said was a recurring lung infection.