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Nelson Mandela waves to the media as he arrives outside No 10 Downing Street in central London, on August 28, 2007/FILE

World

Government denies Mandela in ‘vegetative state’

Earlier in the day, Machel said that while occasionally Mandela has been uncomfortable during his nearly one month hospital stay, he has seldom been in pain.

“Now we are about 25 days we have been in hospital,” Machel said, giving thanks for the outpouring of well wishes from around the world for the Nobel peace laureate.

“Although Madiba sometimes may be uncomfortable, very few times he is in pain,” she said.

The former president, who turns 95 later this month, was rushed to hospital on June 8 with a recurring lung infection.

Mandela’s grandson thrust the increasingly acerbic family feud over the gravesites firmly into the public eye Thursday.

Mandla Mandela launched a tirade at close family members who took him to court to force him to return the remains of the three Mandela children to the revered former South African leader’s proposed burial ground in Qunu.

Mandla accused one of his brothers of impregnating his wife and said others were born out of wedlock.

He also accused other close relatives of money-grabbing.

“In the past few days I have been the target of attacks from all sorts of individuals wanting a few minutes of fame and media attention at my expense,” Mandla said at a nationally televised press conference.

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He accused Mandela’s daughter Makaziwe of trying to “sow divisions and destruction” in her family.

The anti-apartheid hero’s ex-wife Winnie, who has regularly visited him in hospital, “has no business in the matters of the Mandelas,” Mandla added.

He also lashed out at his own brother Ndaba for claiming he was born out of wedlock.

“I don’t want to hang out our dirty linen as a family in public but he knows very well that my father impregnated a married woman of which he is the result of that act…. As for the remaining of my two brothers we all know that they are not my father’s children.”

Mandla however said he would not fight a court order to move the remains of his father, uncle and aunt from his estate in Mvezo — the eastern village where he is overseeing large-scale development as the local traditional chief — back to nearby Qunu, Mandela’s childhood home.

The three bodies were exhumed Wednesday after a sheriff forced open the gates of Mandla’s estate with a pickaxe to allow three hearses to enter the property.

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