Sunday Times 2
Obamas skip hospital visit to see Mandela
View(s):PRETORIA, June 29 (Reuters) – U.S. President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama will meet with relatives of anti-apartheid hero Nelson Mandela, but they will not visit the hospital where the former South African president is critically ill, the White House said.
Obama is in South Africa on the second stop of a three-nation Africa tour. “Out of deference to Nelson Mandela’s peace and comfort and the family’s wishes, they will not be visiting the hospital,” the White House said in a statement. Since starting his Africa tour in Senegal on Thursday, Obama has paid fulsome tribute to the man globally admired as a symbol of struggle against injustice and of racial reconciliation for the way he led South Africa out of centuries of white-minority rule. The U.S. president has called Mandela a “personal hero” and is due to make a tour on Sunday of Robben Island, the former penal colony where South Africa’s first black president passed 18 of the 27 years he spent in apartheid jails.
U.S. President Barack Obama (2nd L) and First Lady Michelle Obama (L) wave next to South Africa's President Jacob Zuma (2nd R) and his wife, First Lady Thobeka Madiba-Zuma, at the Union Building in Pretoria (REUTERS)
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