Former South African president Nelson Mandela has died, aged 95. The former president had been in a Pretoria hospital for almost three months, spending his 95th birthday there as he received intensive treatment for a respiratory illness. He was discharged from hospital on September 1st 2013, but the South African government said the anti-apartheid hero remains critically ill and under intensive care at his home, where he died this morning, Friday, 6th December 2013. President Jacob Zuma’s office said at the time that Mandela would receive the same level of care at home as he had in hospital. In July 2013, court documents obtained by AFP revealed Mandela had been in a ‘vegetative state’ for a week, and was being kept alive by his family as they feuded over the burial of two of Mandela’s children. The South African government reacted quickly and denied the claims, saying Mandela was not ‘vegetative’. He has been hospitalised four times since December 2012, mostly for the pulmonary condition that has plagued him for years.
