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South Africa: Happy Birthday Nelson Mandela
Many offered birthday wishes outside the Pretoria hospital where Mandela has been receiving treatment, singing songs and holding up signs wishing him a speedy recovery.
“Thank you for all that you have done for this country,” said one well-wisher, Margaret Chechie.
Mandela’s victory in the first multiracial elections in 1994 put an end to the segregationist apartheid system. Four years earlier, he was released from 27 years spent in prison under white minority rule, 18 of them at the notorious Robben Island penal colony.
Ethiopian and Nigerian migrant workers and traders who have settled in South Africa cleaned streets in Johannesburg to pay tribute to a figure widely praised as “a father of Africa”.
“In this country, Mandela is the reason all of us blacks are free, so that’s why we love him as the first citizen,” said Kennedy Uzondu, 30, a Nigerian trader who has lived in South Africa for three years.
The United Nations declared July 18 as Nelson Mandela International Day in 2009 and will celebrate with speeches from figures such as former U.S. President Bill Clinton.
“Tata (our father) is making this remarkable progress and we look forward to having him back home soon,” Mandela’s daughter Zindzi told reporters.
