JOHANNESBURG: Former South African President Nelson Mandela was discharged from hospital on Sunday after a keyhole abdominal examination showed there was nothing seriously wrong with the 93-year-old anti-apartheid leader, the government said.
"The doctors have decided to send him home as the diagnostic procedure he underwent did not indicate anything seriously wrong with him," President Jacob Zuma's office said in a statement.
His departure from Pretoria's "1 Military" hospital in a multi-vehicle motorcade marks the end of an anxious 24-hour wait for South Africa's 50 million people, after Mandela was admitted on Saturday morning with "long-standing abdominal pain".
The government insisted throughout there was nothing to panic about.
Defence Minister Lindiwe Sisulu said Mandela had had "investigative laparoscopy" - a tiny camera inserted into the abdomen - and denied reports he had undergone surgery for a hernia.
"It wasn't the surgery that has been out there in the media at all," Sisulu told a media briefing in Cape Town. "He's fine. He's as fine as can be at his age - and handsome."
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