Stephane De Sakutin/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
A crowd sings "Happy
Birthday" to Nelson Mandela, the former president of South Africa,
outside the Mediclinic Heart Hospital in Pretoria.
After weeks battling critical illness, Nelson Mandela,
South Africa’s first black president and an emblem of its struggle
against apartheid, spent his 95th birthday in the hospital on Thursday
and the authorities said his condition was “steadily improving.”
A newspaper vendor shows the front page of the local paper, Daily Sun, in Soweto, South Africa.
The assessment contrasted with weeks of concern among South Africans
and across the globe that Mr. Mandela might not recover from a lung
infection that forced him into the hospital for the fourth time in a
year on June 8. Previously the authorities had described his condition
as “critical but stable.”
Mr. Mandela’s birthday was also marked by Mandela Day, when schools
across the land paid tribute to the former president at morning
assemblies and many organizations asked supporters to volunteer 67
minutes of their time to mark his 67 years of public service.
In a statement,
President Jacob Zuma wished Mr. Mandela a happy birthday on Thursday
and, using the former president’s clan name, said: “Madiba remains in
hospital in Pretoria but his doctors have confirmed that his health is
steadily improving.”
“On behalf of government and all the people of South Africa, we wish
Madiba a joyous 95th birthday,” the statement said. “We are proud to
call this international icon our own as South Africans and wish him
good health. We thank all our people for supporting Madiba throughout
the hospitalization with undying love and compassion. We also thank all
for responding to the call to give Madiba the biggest birthday
celebration ever this year.”
Mr. Mandela was hospitalized in June to be treated for what the government said was a recurring lung infection.
Little is known about the details of his medical condition. A court
affidavit filed in June in a dispute within Mr. Mandela’s family over
where he might be buried claimed he was in a permanent vegetative
state, but both family and medical team members denied this. Family
members and friends who have visited him more recently say that Mr.
Mandela is sometimes awake, smiling, communicating with his eyes and
even trying to talk.
In an interview
with Britain’s Sky News, a daughter, Zindzi Mandela-Motlhajwa, said on
Wednesday that Mr. Mandela was watching television and using headphones
to hear the sound.
“You can see he is there in his eyes, the same energy and strength,”
she said. The family planned to present Mr. Mandela with a collage of
family photographs as a birthday gift, she said.
Ms. Mandela-Motlhajwa is a daughter of Mr. Mandela and his former wife,
Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, who called his 95th birthday “a gift to the
nation.”
“There are some prophets of doom who say the country will come to a
standstill” when the former president dies, Reuters quoted Ms.
Madikizela-Mandela as saying in a radio interview. But, she said, “the
country will continue as it has always done. If anything, the country
will solidify, come together and carry on.”
Since 2009, the United Nations has recognized July 18 as Nelson Mandela
International Day, urging people around the world to devote the same 67
minutes as South Africans to good works.