Stop contacting Mandela: Foundation

The Nelson Mandela Foundation has asked people to respect the retirement of the aging former South African president and stop attempts to contact him.

The Nelson Mandela Foundation has asked people to respect the retirement of the aging former South African president and stop incessant attempts to contact him, a statement said.

"The Nelson Mandela Foundation would like to ask people everywhere to help make Madiba's retirement a time of peace and tranquillity," the statement on Thursday said.

According to his foundation, the 92-year-old Nobel Laureate receives 4000 requests per month for autographs, public appearances, and endorsement of various humanitarian causes around the globe.

"Given the huge number of projects and causes he is asked to endorse, and the impossibility of selecting a few among the many worthy requests, he no longer provides messages of support, written or audio visual," the statement said.

After his withdrawal from public life in 2004, Mandela created the Nelson Mandela Foundation, the Nelson Mandela Children's Fund and the Mandela Rhodes Foundation to continue humanitarian work on his behalf.

Mandela, South Africa's first black president, is increasingly frail and has not appeared publicly since the closing ceremony of the 2010 FIFA World Cup in Johannesburg.

In July, the much-loved statesman through his lawyers distanced himself from a London exhibition of lithographs bearing his signature.

Last year, Mandela threatened legal action after Congo Republic President Denis Sassou-Nguesso published a book with a foreword said to have been written by him.


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Source: AAP

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