Nelson Mandela, who has been lying critically ill in hospital for just over two months, is becoming more alert and more responsive by the day, his youngest daughter said, adding that the anti-apartheid hero is “not going anywhere anytime soon”.
“Tata (father) now manages to sit up, like now he is able to sit up in a chair for a few minutes in a day. Everyday you know, he becomes more alert, more responsive, and so on,” Zindzi Mandela told South Africa public television SABC on Friday.
“Tata is determined not to go anywhere anytime soon, I cannot stress this enough. “People must stop saying to the family let go, let go, we are just looking at this man who is saying I’m not going anywhere,” said Zindzi as she left the Pretoria hospital where her father is being treated.
The former South African president was rushed to the Mediclinic Heart Hospital on June 8 with a recurring lung infection.
His condition is still said to be “critical but stable”. But the last two months have seen a series of scares for the Nobel Peace Prize laureate and for the country where he is considered a living saint.