Johannesburg (Reuters) – former President of South Africa Nelson Mandela was admitted Saturday to a hospital to be treated in a “prolonged abdominal pain”, thereby increasing concerns about the health of the leading anti-apartheid 93 years.
The Government reported that Mandela required medical treatment specialized, although the African National Congress (ANC) ruling party claimed that his hospitalization was not an emergency and that it did not imply surgery.
“There is no need to panic,” said the spokesman for the ANC Khoza Keith to the South African channel e-News. “It wasn’t an income to the hospital by emergency.” “It was planned”, he said.
A party source told Reuters that Mandela, who is popularly known as Madiba, not “seems to be serious”.
Mandela, which is fragile health, spent several days in a Johannesburg’s Milpark hospital just over one year ago with respiratory problems.
Since then has not appeared in public and spends the time between Johannesburg and the population of their ancestors, Qunu, in the impoverished Eastern Cape Province.
As South Africa, Mandela the first Black President occupies a central position in the mythology of a country which was ruled by the white minority until the elections of 1994 which allowed candidates regardless of race.
Previously this month, President Jacob Zuma and the central bank issued a series of banknotes with their image.
Mandela retired some time to active politics and public life of the largest economy in Africa, and its last stint in the Government was completed in 1999.
His last major public appearance occurred in July of 2010 in the final of the World Cup in the stadium Soccer City in Johannesburg.
