Nelson Mandela has in fact gone home from the hospital. But the conflicting stories this weekend about his condition created enough confusion that former President George H. W. Bush himself reportedly fell victim to the latest Nelson Mandela Twitter death hoax .
As The Inquisitr previously reported, there were multiple reports on Saturday that Nelson Mandela had been discharged from his hospital bed in Pretoria to return to his home in Johannesburg.
The first black president of South Africa is 95 years old and has suffered recurrent lung problems, partly as a result of 27 years in prison to protest apartheid in that nation. He has spent the last three months in the hospital in critical condition — which has unfortunately sparked some people to indulge in a hobby of spreading death hoaxes on Twitter.
After the first reports of Mandela’s release from the hospital came out on Saturday, they were followed within hours by new reports that he was still in the hospital after all.
Now, the government of South Africa has confirmed that Nelson Mandela was released from the hospital today, September 1. Here’s a portion of their statement:
“Former President Nelson Mandela has this morning, 1 September 2013, been discharged from the Pretoria hospital where he has been receiving treatment. We would like to wish him all the best as he continues his recovery at his Johannesburg home.
“Madiba’s condition remains critical and is at times unstable. Nevertheless, his team of doctors are convinced that he will receive the same level of intensive care at his Houghton home that he received in Pretoria. His home has been reconfigured to allow him to receive intensive care there. The health care personnel providing care at his home are the very same who provided care to him in hospital…”
You can read a tweet containing the entire statement here.
Unfortunately, the confusion about whether or not Nelson Mandela had gone home left a gap that the death hoaxers were apparently quick to fill.
According to early reports on Sunday morning, the office of former President George H. W. Bush wrongly released a statement offering condolences on Nelson Mandela’s death. If Bush 41’s office did in fact release that statement, it has since been deleted — and it’s entirely possible that the whole story was the work of cruel death hoaxers.
UPDATE: Bush spokesman Jim McGrath has now acknowledged that the George H. W. Bush office did sent out the Nelson Mandela condolences. According to Politico , McGrath has now apologized for falling victim to the Mandela death hoax : “We take our credibility and good standing with the news media seriously, which makes what happened this morning unacceptable.”
Nelson Mandela is still in critical condition. He’s still 95 years old. But he isn’t yet dead. Be careful about anything you read about Nelson Mandela’s death on Twitter — even if the report claims to come from a very highly placed source like former President George Bush.
South African presidency denies statement from former U.S. President George H. W. Bush, says Nelson Mandela is alive.
— BNO News (@BNONews) September 1, 2013
Nelson Mandela has died six times this summer, shattering previous world record of once.
— Downtown Josh Brown (@ReformedBroker) September 1, 2013
[Nelson Mandela photo credit: Archives de la Ville de Montréal via photopin cc ]
