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South Africa: Nation holds it’s breath as Mandela condition worsens
Mandela is revered for his lifetime of opposition to the system of race-based apartheid rule imposed by the white minority government that sentenced him to 27 years in jail, more than half of them on notorious Robben Island.
He is also respected for the way he preached reconciliation after the 1994 transition to multi-racial democracy following three centuries of brutal white domination.
Well-wishers’ messages, bouquets and stuffed animals have piled up outside Mandela’s Johannesburg home and the wall of the hospital compound where he is being treated in the capital.
South Africans seemed resigned to the prospect of losing their hero, but expressed gratitude for what he had done.
“That great man who is in God’s hands now fought so a black woman like me could move into this “whites-only” area in 1991,” teacher Nthabi Chauke, 54, said outside the hospital. “Now I know what freedom feels like. I came here to say thank you.”
Mandela stepped down in 1999 after one five-year term in office. Since then he has played little role in public life, dividing his time in retirement between his home in the wealthy Johannesburg suburb of Houghton and Qunu, the village in the impoverished Eastern Cape province where he was born.
