Story highlights
NEW: Mandela getting kidney dialysis, source says
Tutu intervened after a bitter dispute among relatives of the anti-apartheid icon
The bitter squabble is over the burial of Mandela's three children
They were exhumed and reburied this week in Mandela's boyhood home of Qunu
Former South African President Nelson Mandela’s health had declined so sharply last week that his family was considering whether to take him off life support before his condition improved, a court document released Thursday revealed.
Tutu intervened after a bitter dispute among relatives over the burial of Mandela’s three deceased children. His grandson exhumed them from Qunu two years ago, then reburied them in Mvezo.
The rest of the family sued the grandson, and a court ordered him to return the remains to Qunu, where the former president spent his childhood. They were reburied there this week.
The drama has played out in public, with the grandson, Mandla Mandela, lashing out at his relatives during a news conference.
Mandela’s family dispute comes at a precarious time. The statesman is hospitalized and on life support for a recurring lung infection.
Though he has been getting kidney dialysis, he is not in a vegetative state and opens his eyes when people talk to him, a source with direct knowledge of the situation told CNN on Friday.
The feud has appalled the nation, prompting Tutu to step in and appeal to the family to stop.
“Please, please, please may we think not only of ourselves. It’s almost like spitting in Madiba’s face,” Tutu said in a statement, according to the South African Press Association.
“Your anguish, now, is the nation’s anguish – and the world’s. We want to embrace you, to support you, to shine our love for Madiba through you.”
Madiba is the revered statesman’s clan name.
Mandela has been hospitalized in Pretoria for nearly a month.
Court documents filed in relation to the case revealed more details on the condition of South Africa’s first black president.
His health had declined so sharply last week that his family was considering whether to take him off life support, a court document revealed Thursday. His condition later improved.
The document, known as a “certificate of urgency,” was filed on June 26. It stated that the 94-year-old Mandela “has taken a turn for the worst and that the Mandela family have been advised by the medical practitioners that his life support machine should be switched off.”
It stated that Mandela, 94, had taken “a turn for the worst” and doctors had advised his family to switch off his life support machine.
“Rather than prolonging his suffering, the Mandela family is exploring this option as a very real probability,” it added.
Mandela remained critical but stable Thursday, Zuma’s office reported after he visited Mandela. It denied reports that Mandela was in a “vegetative state.”
Considered the founding father of South Africa’s modern democracy, Mandela has been hospitalized in Pretoria since June 8 for a recurring lung infection – a legacy of his years of imprisonment under South Africa’s now-defunct apartheid regime.
His lung problems started during his years in prison under the nation’s now-defunct apartheid regime.
They were reburied Thursday in the family compound. But the dispute brought a public chiding from another hero of the anti-apartheid cause, retired Archbishop Desmond Tutu.
The three are Nelson Mandela’s first daughter, Makaziwe Mandela, who died as a baby in 1948; his eldest son, Madiba Thembekile, who died in a car crash in 1969; and Makgatho Mandela, father to Mandla, who died in 2005, the news agency said.
Before they were reburied this week, a forensic test was done to confirm the identities of the bodies.
CNN’s Robyn Curnow reported from Pretoria, and Faith Karimi reported and wrote from Atlanta. CNN’s Laura Smith-Spark contributed to this report from London.