World Wishes the Leader

BIRTHDAY\\ Nelson Mandela spend his 95th birthday in a hospital in Pretoria, as events were held around the world, and in South Africa, in his honour. South Africans were urged to mark the former President and anti-apartheid leader’s 67 years of public service with 67 minutes of charitable acts. Mandela, who remains in a critical but stable condition with a recurring lung infection, entered hospital on June 8, 2013. President Jacob Zuma said the leaders’s health was “steadily improving”. “We are proud to call this international icon our own as South Africans and wish him good health,” said Zuma in a statement adding, “We thank all our people for supporting Madiba throughout the hospitalisation with undying love and compassion,” he said, referring to Mandela by his clan name.

Wave after musical wave rang out, as choirs, political groups, schoolchildren and onlookers arrived one after another, dancing, gyrating and laughing, each with their own loud musical tribute to the man they see as the one who brought them freedom. Crowds thronged the wall of tribute outside the hospital, which sprang up spontaneously soon after Mandela was admitted with a lung infection on June 8, 2013. Since then, heaps of flowers, artwork, posters and written tributes have spread along the wall and spilled down a nearby hill.

Hopes rose Wednesday evening when Mandela’s daughter, Zindzi Mandela, told British television that Mandela’s health had improved dramatically and that he might return home “any time soon”.