JOHANNESBURG: Former South African President Nelson Mandela was receiving medical treatment for a lung infection on Sunday after spending a second night in a hospital.

There was no official update on 94-year-old Mandela's condition, described in a government statement on Saturday as ‘serious but stable.’

The office of President Jacob Zuma had said that Mandela was taken to a Pretoria hospital after his condition deteriorated at around 1:30 a.m. on Saturday. It described the lung infection as recurring.

The anti-apartheid leader has now been taken to a hospital four times since December, with the last discharge coming on April 6 after doctors diagnosed him with pneumonia and drained fluid from his lung area.

Worshippers at a Sunday church service in the Johannesburg township of Soweto prayed for the recovery of Mandela, who was freed in 1990 after 27 years as a prisoner of white racist rule and won election to the presidency in all-race elections in 1994. (AP)