Johannesburg: Anti-apartheid icon Nelson Mandela, who is receiving treatment for a recurrent lung infection, is now in critical condition, South Africa's presidency has said.
"The condition of former president Nelson Mandela, who is still in hospital in Pretoria, has become critical," Mac Maharaj, presidential spokesman, said in a statement on Sunday.
The condition of 94-year-old who was admitted to hospital on June 8 has worsened in the past 24 hours.
South Africans appeared resigned on Monday to the inevitability of one day saying goodbye to the former president.
Mandela's latest hospitalisation - his fourth in six months - has reinforced a realisation that the father of the post-apartheid 'Rainbow Nation' will not be around for ever.
President Jacob Zuma told a news conference that he and African National Congress (ANC) Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa had visited Mandela late on Sunday night.
Zuma declined to give specific details about his medical condition other than to say that Mandela remained in critical condition.
"Given the hour, he was already asleep. We saw him, looked at him and then we had a bit of a discussion with the doctors and his wife," Zuma said. "I don't think I'm a position to give further details. I'm not a doctor."
US President Barack Obama is due to visit South Africa this week as part of a three-country Africa tour, but Zuma said Mandela's deterioration should not affect the trip.
"Nothing is going to stop the visit because Madiba is sick," Zuma said.
Mandela, who became South Africa's first black president in 1994, is due to celebrate his 95th birthday on July 18. He has been hospitalised four times since December, mostly for the pulmonary condition that has plagued him for years.
Madiba, as he is affectionately known, is revered among most of South Africa's 53 million people as the architect of the/s1994 transition to multi-racial democracy after three centuries of white domination.
