Nelson Mandela, 93, hospitalized

Associated Press

JOHANNESBURG — Former South African President Nelson Mandela was hospitalized for a test to determine what is behind an undisclosed stomach ailment, and the country’s current leader said the much beloved 93-year-old icon was in no danger.

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.

Mandela “has had a long-standing abdominal complaint and doctors feel it needs proper specialist medical attention,” President Jacob Zuma said in a statement Saturday morning, asking that Mandela’s privacy be respected.

In a follow-up statement later, Zuma added that Mandela had undergone a planned, undisclosed “diagnostic procedure.”

Mandela “is fine and fully conscious and the doctors are satisfied with his condition, which they say is consistent with his age,” Zuma said. “We are happy that he is not in any danger.”

Zuma said Mandela was expected to be discharged from the hospital today or Monday.

The statements did not say at which hospital Mandela was being treated, apparently to protect his privacy, but that did not stop journalists from camping out at a military hospital in the capital, Pretoria, on the chance he might be there. In 2011, Mandela spent a few days in a private Johannesburg hospital with an acute respiratory infection.

The South African military, which took charge of Mandela’s health care after he was hospitalized last year, and a spokesman for Mandela’s office said they would have no statement Saturday.

Well-wishers like Derek Kemper, a 47-year-old emergency services consultant, said they hoped Mandela would soon recover.