AFP JOHANNESBURG NELSON Mandela was recovering at home in Johannesburg on Monday after being discharged from hospital with a clean bill of health, easing fears over the revered icon of the antiapartheid struggle.

The 93-year-old former president was released on Sunday after spending the night in hospital for a minor exploratory procedure to investigate persistent abdominal pain.

President Jacob Zuma’s office said Mandela was resting with family at his home in the leafy suburb of Houghton.

“Following his discharge from hospital (Sunday), former president Nelson Mandela has resumed his normal day-to-day life,” a statement said.

“He is recuperating at home with the support of his family.” But even as South Africa breathed a collective sigh of relief, Mandela’s latest hospitalisation forced the nation to contemplate the day when the man who led it from the dark days of white-minority rule will no longer be here.

“Whenever it comes, it will come as a shock. There will be a lot of public mourning because of the influence he had over the last 70 years in South Africa and over the life of most South Africans,” Frans Cronje of the South African Institute of Race Relations told AFP.

Mandela, once a spry former boxer who stayed fit during his 27 years in prison by doing calisthenics in his cell, has grown increasingly frail as a nonagenarian.

His last public appearance was at the final of the World Cup in South Africa in July 2010.

Rumours of his death or failing health flare up periodically, forcing the government to issue reassurances that all is well.

His last hospitalisation, for a chest infection in January last year, sparked public panic and a media frenzy as the government and Mandela’s charitable foundation refused to release information on his condition.