MANDELA STILL SUFFERING FROM RECURRING LUNG INFECTION

Former South African
President Nelson Mandela was receiving
medical treatment for a lung infection on
Sunday after spending a second night in a
hospital.

There was no official update on 94-year-
old Mandela's condition, described in a
government statement on Saturday as
"serious but stable."
The office of President Jacob Zuma had
said that Mandela was taken to a Pretoria
hospital after his condition deteriorated
at around 1:30 a.m. on Saturday. It
described the lung infection as recurring.

The anti-apartheid leader has now been
taken to a hospital four times since
December, with the last discharge coming
on April 6 after doctors diagnosed him
with pneumonia and drained fluid from
his lung area.
Worshippers at a Sunday church service in
the Johannesburg township of Soweto
prayed for the recovery of Mandela, who
was freed in 1990 after 27 years as a
prisoner of white racist rule and won
election to the presidency in all-race
elections in 1994.
At the Regina Mundi church in Soweto,
Father Sebastian Rousso said Mandela,
seen by many as a symbol of
reconciliation, played a key role "not only
for ourselves as South Africans, but for
the world."

Welcome Tempa, a construction worker,
said he prayed daily for Mandela, who
retired from public life years ago and had
been receiving medical care at his
Johannesburg home until his latest
transfer to a hospital.
"When I was still a kid, we used to pray
for him," said Tempa, who is 63 years old.

On April 29, state television broadcast
footage of a visit by Zuma and other
leaders of the ruling African National
Congress to Mandela's home. Zuma said
at the time that Mandela was in good
shape, but the footage - the first public
images of Mandela in nearly a year
showed him silent and unresponsive,
even when Zuma tried to hold his hand.

The Nobel Peace Prize laureate has been
particularly vulnerable to respiratory
problems since contracting tuberculosis
during his long imprisonment. The bulk of
that period was spent on Robben Island,
an outpost off the coast of Cape Town
where Mandela and other prisoners spent
part of the time toiling in a stone quarry