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Nelson Mandela on life support UPDATE: FormerPresident Nelson Mandela has died at 95 Updated 5:48 p.m. ET Nelson Mandela is on life support.  JOHANNESBURG -- The former South African president's condition has worsened over the last couple of days. Well-wishers and supporters continued Wednesday to gather outside of the Pretoria hospital where the former South African president has been receiving treatment for nearly three weeks and the South African president canceled a Thursday trip amid worry about his health. On Sunday, President Jacob Zuma said the 94-year-old former leader is "well-looked after and is comfortable" but the South African government has been relatively tight-lipped regarding Mandela's health status. The South African president canceled a Thursday trip to Maputo, the Mozambican capital, where he was to attend a meeting on regional investment. CBS News Debora Patta reports that 500 miles away from Pretoria, in Mandela's ancestral village of Qunu, there was a lot of activity on Monday. Family members were observed inspecting a burial site in the area and CBS sources told Patta the meeting was called to resolve a bitter family feud over the removal of graves of other relatives from the site by Mandela's grandson. South Africans were torn on Wednesday between the desire not to lose a critically ill Nelson Mandela, who defined the aspirations of so many of his compatriots, and resignation that the beloved former prisoner and president is approaching the end of his life. The sense of anticipation and foreboding about Mandela's fate has grown since late Sunday, when the South African government declared that the condition of the statesman, who was rushed to a hospital in Pretoria on June 8, had deteriorated.  A tide of emotional tributes has built on social media and in hand-written messages and flowers laid outside the hospital and Mandela's home. On Wednesday, about 20 children from a day care center posted a hand-made card outside the hospital and recited a poem. "Hold on, old man," was one of the lines in the Zulu poem, according to the South African Press  Association. In recent days, international leaders, celebrities, athletes and others have praised Mandela, not just as the man who steered South Africa through its tense transition from white racist rule to democracy two decades ago, but as a universal symbol of sacrifice and reconciliation. In South Africa's Eastern Cape province, where Mandela grew up, a traditional leader said the time was near for Mandela, who is also known by his clan name, Madiba.

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Nelson Mandela on life support

UPDATE: FormerPresident Nelson Mandela has died at 95

Updated 5:48 p.m. ET

Nelson Mandela is on life support.

 JOHANNESBURG -- The former South African president's condition has worsened over the last

couple of days. Well-wishers and supporters continued Wednesday to gather outside of the Pretoria

hospital where the former South African president has been receiving treatment for nearly three

weeks and the South African president canceled a Thursday trip amid worry about his health.

On Sunday, President Jacob Zuma said the 94-year-old former leader is "well-looked after and is

comfortable" but the South African government has been relatively tight-lipped regarding Mandela's

health status.

The South African president canceled a Thursday trip to Maputo, the Mozambican capital, where he

was to attend a meeting on regional investment.

CBS News Debora Patta reports that 500 miles away from Pretoria, in Mandela's ancestral village of 

Qunu, there was a lot of activity on Monday.

Family members were observed inspecting a burial site in the area and CBS sources told Patta the

meeting was called to resolve a bitter family feud over the removal of graves of other relatives from

the site by Mandela's grandson.

South Africans were torn on Wednesday between the desire not to lose a critically ill Nelson

Mandela, who defined the aspirations of so many of his compatriots, and resignation that the

beloved former prisoner and president is approaching the end of his life.

The sense of anticipation and foreboding about Mandela's fate has grown since late Sunday, when

the South African government declared that the condition of the statesman, who was rushed to a

hospital in Pretoria on June 8, had deteriorated.

 A tide of emotional tributes has built on social media and in hand-written messages and flowers laid

outside the hospital and Mandela's home. On Wednesday, about 20 children from a day care center

posted a hand-made card outside the hospital and recited a poem.

"Hold on, old man," was one of the lines in the Zulu poem, according to the South African Press

 Association.

In recent days, international leaders, celebrities, athletes and others have praised Mandela, not just

as the man who steered South Africa through its tense transition from white racist rule to

democracy two decades ago, but as a universal symbol of sacrifice and reconciliation.

In South Africa's Eastern Cape province, where Mandela grew up, a traditional leader said the timewas near for Mandela, who is also known by his clan name, Madiba.

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"I am of the view that if Madiba is no longer enjoying life, and is on life support systems, and is not

appreciating what is happening around him, I think the good Lord should take the decision to put

him out of his suffering," said the tribal chief, Phathekile Holomisa.

"I did speak to two of his family members, and of course, they are in a lot of pain, and wish that a

miracle might happen, that he recovers again, and he becomes his old self again," he said. "But at

the same time they are aware there is a limit what miracles you can have."

For many South Africans, Mandela's decline is a far more personal matter, echoing the protracted

and emotionally draining process of losing one of their own elderly relatives.

One nugget of wisdom about the arc of life and death came from Matthew Rusznyah, a 9-year-old

boy who stopped outside Mandela's home in the Johannesburg neighborhood of Houghton to show

his appreciation.

"We came because we care about Mandela being sick, and we wish we could put a stop to it, like

snap our fingers," he said. "But we can't. It's how life works."

His mother, Lee Rusznyah, said Mandela, who spent 27 years in prison under apartheid before

becoming South Africa's first black president in all-race elections in 1994, had made the world a

better place.

"All of us will end," Thabo Makgoba, the Anglican archbishop of Cape Town, said in an interview

with The Associated Press on Wednesday. "We just want him to be peacefully released, whatever

he's feeling at this moment, and to be reunited with his Maker at the perfect time, when God so

wills."

The archbishop said: "Ultimately, we are all mortal. At some stage or another, we all have to die, andwe have to move on, we have to be recalled by our Maker and Redeemer. We have to create that

space for Madiba, to come to terms within himself, with that journey."

On Tuesday, Makgoba visited Mandela and offered a prayer in which he wished for a "peaceful,

perfect, end" for the anti-apartheid leader, who was taken to the Pretoria hospital to be treated for

what the government said was a recurring lung infection.

In the prayer, he asked for courage to be granted to Mandela's wife, Graca Machel, and others who

love him "at this hard time of watching and waiting," and he appealed for divine help for the medical

team treating Mandela.

 Visitors to the hospital on Wednesday included Mandela's former wife, Winnie Madikizela-Mandela.

The couple divorced in 1996.

"As he remains in a critical condition in hospital, we must keep him and the family in our thoughts

and prayers every minute," President Jacob Zuma said Wednesday.

Mandela, whose 95th birthday is on July 18, served a single five-year term as president and

afterward focused on charitable causes, but he withdrew from public life years ago and became

increasingly frail in recent years. He last made a public appearance in 2010 at the World Cup soccertournament, which was hosted by South Africa. At that time, he did not speak to the crowd and was

bundled against the cold in a stadium full of fans.

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On April 29, state television broadcast footage of a visit by Zuma and other leaders of the ruling

party, the African National Congress, to Mandela's home. Zuma said at the time that Mandela was in

good shape, but the footage the first public images of Mandela in nearly a year showed him silent

and unresponsive, even when Zuma tried to hold his hand.

"Let's accept instead of crying," said Lucas Aedwaba, a security officer in Pretoria who described

Mandela as a hero. "Let's celebrate that the old man lived and left his legacy."

Dan Lehman, an American academic, chose a jogging route on Wednesday morning that passed by

the hospital where Mandela is being treated.

"I was just going out for my morning run down here and come to pay my respects to the greatest

man in the world," Lehman said. Then he began to cry.

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rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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