Nelson Mandela admitted to hospital

President Jacob Zuma released a statement today saying that Madiba, as Mandela is referred to, needed specialist medical attention.

He said:

“Madiba has had a long-standing abdominal complaint and doctors feel it needs proper specialist medical attention.

We wish him a speedy recovery and assure him of the love and good wishes of all South Africans and people throughout the world.”

Mandela, who is known to be in frail health, spent several days at Johannesburg’s Milpark hospital nearly a year ago with respiratory problems.

He has not appeared in public since then, and has spent his time between Johannesburg and his ancestral village of Qunu in South Africa’s impoverished Eastern Cape.

Nelson Mandela photo gallery: a life in pictures