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Updated at 8 a.m ET: JOHANNESBURG -- Former President Nelson Mandela was released from the hospital Sunday after an overnight stay for minor diagnostic surgery to determine the cause of an abdominal complaint, a spokesman for the country's current leader said.
Spokesman Mac Maharaj said the 93-year-old Nobel peace laureate and anti-apartheid leader had undergone a laparoscopy, a procedure that involves surgeons making an incision in the belly to insert a thin, lighted tube to look at abdominal organs.
"The doctors have decided to send him home as the diagnostic procedure he underwent did not indicate anything seriously wrong
with him," President Jacob Zuma's office added in a statement.
Earlier in the day, Zuma had released a statement saying that Mandela was "surrounded by his family and is relaxed and
comfortable."
South Africa's 93-year-old former leader remains hospitalized. NBC News Special Correspondent Charlayne Hunter-Gault reports on his progress.
"The doctors are happy with the progress he is making. We thank all South Africans for their love and support of Madiba. We also thank all for affording Madiba and his family privacy and dignity," said Zuma, referring to Mandela by his clan name.
In the latest health update, Defense Minister Lindiwe Sisulu said Mandela had had "investigative laparoscopy" -- where a tiny camera is inserted into the abdomen -- and denied reports that he had undergone surgery for a hernia.
"It wasn't the surgery that has been out there in the media at all," Sisulu told a media briefing in Cape Town. "He's fine. He's as fine as can be at his age -- and handsome."
The government has not revealed where Mandela is being treated, although reporters were being kept at a distance from Pretoria's "1 Military" hospital, which is officially responsible for the health of sitting and former presidents.
South Africa's former President Nelson Mandela hospitalized
Mandela, a Nobel peace laureate who spent 27 years in prison for fighting racist white rule, has officially retired and last appeared in public in July 2010. He became South Africa's first black president in 1994 and served one five-year term.
On Sunday, well-wishers prayed for Mandela at Regina Mundi church in Soweto, a former center of anti-apartheid protests and funerals.
In 1997, Mandela spoke at the church, calling it a "battlefield between forces of democracy and those who did not hesitate to violate a place of religion with tear gas, dogs and guns."
But despite widespread public affection, most accept that Mandela may not live for much longer.
"We wish him well," said Soweto resident Ronny Zondi. "But understanding his age, we've got to accept he might not be with us for long. We wish that God could keep him longer."
Mandela's last public appearance was in July 2010 at the final of the World Cup in Johannesburg's Soccer City stadium. He now divides his time between his home in Johannesburg's northern suburbs and his ancestral village of Qunu in the Eastern Cape.
The government's public comments on Mandela's hospitalization have been markedly more open than a year ago.
Then, Zuma's office took hours to confirm media reports of a sudden decline in Mandela's health, leading to a scrum of local and international reporters outside Johannesburg's Milpark hospital.
Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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Why is nothing being said about the murders of Boer farmers
Americans killed many slaves and each others before they got their freedom. Lets not forget all the native indians that were killed too
Too bad the world can always use one less socialist.
@notforsale:
Nice Christian values there.
Atrocities have existed (horribly) on both sides in marching forward towards equal rights. There is sadly no way to deny that fact. I wish it weren't true. Yet Mr. Mandela's overall philosophical message, from my perspective, has been a lesson that has greatly helped me and I'm most appreciative for having heard the words of this man. notforsale: I would never wish death upon anyone. How sad for you to have such feelings. I hope you live a long and prosperous life and each of us of course finds our own paths towards our sense of wellbeing, justice and community. Good things Mr. Mandela and wishes on your journey to who knows what notforsale. Please keep talking as you travel your path as your words helped enlighten me...yet perhaps in a different direction than yours. Yet of course we are all free with free minds and the capacity to evaluate.
Please could you make your reporting about South Africa more balanced by including the terrible murdering of Boer farmers in South Africa.
Readers please go to You Tube to find more information, it is shocking.
@ BlueBellUK
it's retaliation... It's not right... not at all right. But it wasn't right what white people has done to those native South Africans either - Blood for Blood so they must feel.
I feel sad that Mandela will not be with us much longer. Only if native South Africans saw what he saw during his time. Mandela is truly a great man with visions.
So what...and other news...
and then?
Just look at what Barrack Obama is doing to us under the guise that he is the leader of the free world.
...what? No, you're confused. This article is about Nelson Mandela. They're different.
mandela is an avowed marxist and the world will be a better place without this murdering tyrant.
Did u ever live in southern africa? It could have open your eyes/
@barneyfife >mandela is an avowed marxist and the world will be a better place without this murdering tyrant.
How many people were *murdered*, *tortured*, *shot*, *blown up* by the police under apartheid? Try thousands. How many were thrown into shanty towns to live penniless on Bantustan "reservations" while whites lived in luxury? And these Afrikaners were our "capitalist" allies? What is so wonderful about such extreme racism that you feel the need to indirectly defend it, while calling Mandela a marxist, murderer and tyrant? What is the factual basis for your assertion that he was a tyrant? How about for murder? Simply being a Marxist is somehow justification for your blind and stupid comment?
I continue to be astounded by those who insist on exercising their first amendment right to make complete jackasses of themselves about virtually anything they know utterly nothing factual about (too much Rush or his ilk I guess). These same people who spout lies and half-truths are those who vilify the so called "liberal media" and vomit the poisonous waste of popular (read: idiot) "conservatism", leaving a stinking stain for the rest of us to endure or clean up. Hateful, terrible, ignorant people that make me ashamed to be an American.
@BlueBell > Please could you make your reporting about South Africa more balanced by including the terrible murdering of Boer farmers in South Africa.
Murder is terrible and should not be tolerated. But there is a a huge difference between the wanton attacks by African thieves and murderers against Afrikaner farmers (or, MUCH worse, of Africans against themselves), than the state-sponsored oppression and terrorism suffered by Africans during the Apartheid regime. Tell the story of how the African poor continue to suffer at the hands of rival gangs in the slums while whites live in the relative safety in walled villas and secured suburban homes. You want balanced? Try looking at the company-owned and operated mine worker's shacks where hundreds of men would live in cramped and unsanitary conditions. Try exploring the intense poverty of those who have to eke out a living in the city dumps of Pretoria or Cape Town. Try showing the *whole* picture.
South Africa is such a better place. Thank you Mandela. LOL
Pull our troops out as of today, disable and leave all equipment where is is ... and ... oh yes ... cancel the current and any further multi-million dollar checks that were due to go to their government ... no need to enrich Karisa any longer!!
what has that got to do with the story above?
The question should be, is the life of the average black in South Africa better or worse under black rule? Explain your answer giving examples such as crime rate, poverty rate, crime rate, average caloric intake, and housing conditions.
Anacdotal evidence would seem to indicate that blacks in South Africa are worse off than before, but if anyone has factual information please share!
hey you press writers,,why did you tell of the thousands of people this terrable communist had killed befoore he went to prison
When Bin Laden was finally killed last May.Our mission in Afghanistan was ultimate and complete and "ALL" Americans--Millitary AND Civilian should have been pulled out of there immediately.The Fallacy that "WE' can some how form a "Democracy" in "NATIONS" that have been fighting and killing each other for over 4 thou years is massive stupidity.Take a long hard LOOK into the faces of these people.There is nothing but bitter hatred and evil.President Obama is doing MORE than the Republican Party to assure he is a one term President or anyone else.Those MAD people do NOT worship the God of Heaven they worship a DEAD man that during his life time was the pinnacle of HATE,BRUTALITY.RAPE,MURDER, ETHNIC CLEANSING, BUTCHERY and ALL kinds of atrocities.And "Allah" is NOT the God of heaven he is a FALSE God created by Muhammad on Satans ( who HE served) directive.This is my LAST post on ANY net message board.Farewell to each and all enemy friend and foe.I am a Nam era Vet that has grown time weary of our troops being KILLED for NOTHING.Korea, Nam, Iraq, and Afghanistan.When ALL our troops are gone.Those people are GOING resume doing what they have BEEN doing for thousands of years.I have spoken.Apologize Mr President? Apologize for WHAT? Them MURDERING our people over a Book? Bibles are burned,defaced and blasphemed EVERY DAY some where in the World but do Christians MURDER and BURN the Temples of worship of others?NO. "IF" President Obama wants to have even a fair chance of reelection after this.He had BETTER order ALL Americans OUT of that HOSTILE to Americans Nation.They KNEW Bin Laden was in that compound.
I think you have gone completely to cyber space with your thoughts that have nothing to with the story. Find a chair in your mountain cabin crack a beer and take a deep breath.
...what? As far as I know, Nelson Mandela has just about NOTHING to do with Bin Laden. What connection are you trying to draw?
oops, repost