JOHANNESBURG (AP) — South Africans prayed for the health of former President Nelson Mandela on Sunday, as the government offered reassurance that the 93-year-old was doing well after spending the night in a hospital following tests for an undisclosed stomach complaint.
Doctors have found “his health is satisfactory, given his age,” Mac Maharaj, spokesman for the country’s current leader, said Sunday.
President Jacob Zuma later had issued a statement on Saturday saying that Mandela was in no danger, and was expected to go home on Sunday or Monday.
Mandela, a Nobel peace laureate who spent 27 years in prison for fighting racist white rule, became South Africa’s first black president in 1994 and served one five-year term. He has officially retired and last appeared in public in July 2010.
On Sunday, well-wishers prayed for Mandela at Regina Mundi church in Soweto, a former center of anti-apartheid protests and funerals.
In 1997, Mandela spoke at the church, calling it a “battlefield between forces of democracy and those who did not hesitate to violate a place of religion with tear gas, dogs and guns.”
