Former South African president Nelson Mandela has been taken into hospital for tests.
94-year-old Mandela was admitted to a hospital in Pretoria for routine tests. The South African government has said there is no cause for alarm.
An icon figure to millions around the world for his stance against the Apartheid regime, Mandela is reportedly in frail health.
Last taken into hospital in February 2012 following persistent abdominal pain, the former president was released the following day after subsequent examination revealed nothing.
Current South African President, Jacob Zuma, released a statement saying:
“Mandela will receive medical attention from time to time which is consistent with his age.”
He added,
“President Zuma assures all that Madiba is doing well and there is no cause for alarm,” referring to Mandela by his clan name.
During his 27 years in prison while fighting against white minority rule under apartheid, it is widely known that Mandela was physically beaten and brutalized.
Mandela went on to become South Africa’s first black president in 1994.
Now aged 94, the elderly statesman has not been in public since South Africa’s Football World Cup final in 2010, although he has continued to receive high-profile visitors, including former US President Bill Clinton and his wife, the US secretary of state, Hilary.
Since his retirement from public life, Mandela has spent most of his time in his ancestral home in Qunu, a village in the impoverished Eastern Cape province.
