JOHANNESBURG (AP) — South Africa’s presidential spokesman says former President Nelson Mandela spent Monday with family members in the hospital where he is being treated for a fifth day for a recurring lung infection that developed into pneumonia.
The 94-year-old who helped free South Africa from white minority rule has had weak lungs ever since he quarried stone on Robben Island during some of his 27 years of imprisonment when he contracted tuberculosis.
Presidential spokesman Mac Maharaj said there was no significant change in Mandela’s condition since Sunday night, when he reported that he had spent a restful day and was comfortable.
Last week doctors drained Mandela’s lung area of fluid which helped him to breathe more freely.
Children wrote loving messages on stones outside his Johannesburg home: “Get well we love you.”
Copyright 2013 The Associated Press.