Nelson Mandela has died at the age of 95, the South African government has announced.The anti-apartheid hero passed away today at his Johannesburg home after his condition deteriorated and he was no longer able to breathe unaided.
Mr Mandela was taken to a Pretoria hospital on June 8 with a recurring lung infection, a complaint he had become more susceptible to as a result of contracting tuberculosis during his 27 years of imprisonment during white racist rule.
South Africa’s first democratically-elected president in all-race elections was subsequently discharged and returned home on September 1, but was still said to be ‘critically’ ill.
Earlier this week his daughter Makaziwe Mandela said the former president was on his ‘deathbed’ but that he was still ‘fighting’.
Metro
