Former South African president Nelson Mandela (Associated Press).

Nelson, 94, has been in the hospital for five days. He’s being treated in a Pretoria military hospital. 

Officials wouldn’t say when the anti-apartheid icon and South Africa’s first black president would be able to return home, the Voice of America reported.  

"That is a premature question, it’s a matter in the hands of the doctors," presidential spokesman Mac Maharaj told VOA. "They would be monitoring it, but I don’t think that they are preoccupied with the discharge. They would be preoccupied with progress being made relative to the treatment that he’s receiving."

Mandela was admitted to a Johannesburg hospital in January 2011 for an acute respiratory infection, and again in February of this year for abdominal pains but was released the following day.

Read more of Neon Tommy’s coverage on Nelson Mandela here.

Reach Executive Producer Agnus Dei Farrant here.