Former South African president Nelson Mandela has been admitted to hospital for medical tests, although the government said there was no cause for alarm.

A statement from President Jacob Zuma's office gave no details of the condition of the 94-year-old anti-apartheid leader.

Mandela, who became South Africa's first black president after the country's first all-race elections in 1994, was admitted to hospital in February because of abdominal pain but released the following day after a keyhole examination showed there was nothing seriously wrong with him.

He has since spent most of his time in his ancestral home in Qunu, a village in the impoverished Eastern Cape Province.

From The Independent