South Africa: Mandela remains in critical condition as family feuds over burial

June 30, 2013 at 7:23PM
Unidentified man takes a photograph of picture former South African President Nelson Mandela and well-wishers message outside the Mediclinic Heart Hospital where is being treated in Pretoria, South Africa Sunday, June 30, 2013. South Africans in Sunday services have been praying for former President Nelson Mandela who is spending his 23rd day in a Pretoria hospital in critical condition.
An unidentified man takes a photograph of a picture of former South African President Nelson Mandela and well-wishers' messages outside the Mediclinic Heart Hospital where he is being treated in Pretoria, South Africa Sunday, June 30, 2013. (Associated Press - Ap/The Minnesota Star Tribune)

JOHANNESBURG — Nelson Mandela's grandson says he will contest a court order for him to move the remains of three family members to their original gravesite.

The family feud comes as Mandela, 94, remains in critical condition Sunday in a Pretoria hospital.

The grandson, Mandla Mandela, issued a statement Sunday saying he was compelled to take action against 16 other family members who had pressed the case.

The court orders that the remains of Nelson Mandela's three deceased children should be moved back to the family gravesite in Qunu from the nearby village of Mvezo, according to South Africa's Sunday Times newspaper.

The Mandela family feud over the gravesite is apparently a prelude to a disagreement over where Nelson Mandela's remains will stay.

Both sides expressed regret over the public case.

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