Doctors advised unplugging Mandela life support, family feud goes public

Doctors treating South Africa’s anti-apartheid icon Nelson Mandela advised his family to turn off his life support machine. The doctors’ opinions, part of court documents submitted to a court by his relatives, say Mandela is in a “permanent vegetative state and is assisted in breathing by a life support machine.” There have been contradictory accounts of Mandela’s condition. The government says Mandela remains “critical but stable” but does not provide more details. The “Certificate of Urgency” document was filed by Mandela family members seeking a court order against Mandela’s grandson, Mandla Mandela. Mandla, chief of the AbaThembu clan, is accused of stealing the bones of Mandela’s 3 dead children and reburying them at Mvezo to ensure Nelson Mandela would eventually be buried there. The family feud intensifies after Mandla also accuses half-brother Mbuso of impregnating Mandla’s wife and said Nelson Mandela’s oldest daughter, Makaziwe, was sowing “divisions and destruction” in the family.

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