Revered icon, 91, now rarely seen in spotlight

NELSON MANDELA remains revered the world over but is rarely seen in public two decades after a walk to freedom that captivated South Africa and the world.

The anti-apartheid icon’s minders jealously guard his privacy in a plush Johannesburg suburb, limiting the increasingly frail 91-year-old’s public engagements.

“We don’t discuss his private life apart from saying that he sees friends and family and does what other normal retired people do, reads and watches TV,” Achmat Dangor, the chief executive of the Nelson Mandela Foundation.