Argentine football legend Diego Maradona left hospital on Wednesday followed by a mass of supporters, eight days after undergoing surgery to remove a blood clot on his brain.
Maradona did not speak to the crowd of media and chanting fans gathered outside in masks as he left the Olivos clinic in Buenos Aires by ambulance shortly after his doctor Leopoldo Luque announced he could go home.
A convoy of Maradona's fans followed the ambulance after dozens had waited outside the clinic for days, holding photos of him and chanting their encouragement.
One banner read "Eternally Thanks."
Luque had earlier published on Instagram a photo of himself hugging the 60-year-old, who wore a bandage on his head.
Maradona is expected to continue his rehabilitation in Tigre, 30km north of Buenos Aires, near his daughter Giannina's home.
"Diego has gone through perhaps the hardest time of his life," his lawyer Matias Morla said earlier, adding it was a "miracle" that the clot "which could have taken his life, was detected."
"What is needed now is family togetherness and being surrounded by health professionals," said Morla. "With the doctors and his family, Diego will be as he should be: happy."
The World Cup-winning former Argentine captain underwent surgery last week to remove a clot lodged between his brain and skull.
He had looked unwell during a brief appearance on October 30 to mark his 60th birthday at the stadium of Gimnasia y Esgrima, the Argentine Primera Division team he coaches.
He seemed to have difficulty walking and did not stay to watch his team's game.
The following Monday, he was taken to hospital in La Plata, where the club is based, suffering from symptoms of anaemia and dehydration.
Tests revealed the blood clot, after which Maradona was transferred to a specialist clinic in the capital.
Maradona has been admitted to hospital three times in the last 20 years for serious health issues - two of which were potentially fatal - due to his drug and alcohol addictions.
Maradona's daughters Dalma, Giannina and Jana have visited him daily at the clinic.
His oldest son, Diego Jr, who lives in Italy, announced last Thursday on social media that he had tested positive for Covid-19 and therefore would not be able to travel to Buenos Aires.
Due to Maradona's age and previous health issues, he is considered high risk in relation to the coronavirus pandemic, which has hit Argentina hard.
Several times in the last eight months he has been in isolation and was forced to stay at home recently after a bodyguard showed coronavirus symptoms, although he later tested negative.
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
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Conflict, drought, famine
Estimates of the number of deaths caused by the famine range from 400,000 to 1 million, according to a document prepared for the UK House of Lords in 2024.
It has been claimed that the policies of the Ethiopian government, which took control after deposing Emperor Haile Selassie in a military-led revolution in 1974, contributed to the scale of the famine.
Dr Miriam Bradley, senior lecturer in humanitarian studies at the University of Manchester, has argued that, by the early 1980s, “several government policies combined to cause, rather than prevent, a famine which lasted from 1983 to 1985. Mengistu’s government imposed Stalinist-model agricultural policies involving forced collectivisation and villagisation [relocation of communities into planned villages].
The West became aware of the catastrophe through a series of BBC News reports by journalist Michael Buerk in October 1984 describing a “biblical famine” and containing graphic images of thousands of people, including children, facing starvation.
Band Aid
Bob Geldof, singer with the Irish rock group The Boomtown Rats, formed Band Aid in response to the horrific images shown in the news broadcasts.
With Midge Ure of the band Ultravox, he wrote the hit charity single Do They Know it’s Christmas in December 1984, featuring a string of high-profile musicians.
Following the single’s success, the idea to stage a rock concert evolved.
Live Aid was a series of simultaneous concerts that took place at Wembley Stadium in London, John F Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia, the US, and at various other venues across the world.
The combined event was broadcast to an estimated worldwide audience of 1.5 billion.
Sole survivors
- Cecelia Crocker was on board Northwest Airlines Flight 255 in 1987 when it crashed in Detroit, killing 154 people, including her parents and brother. The plane had hit a light pole on take off
- George Lamson Jr, from Minnesota, was on a Galaxy Airlines flight that crashed in Reno in 1985, killing 68 people. His entire seat was launched out of the plane
- Bahia Bakari, then 12, survived when a Yemenia Airways flight crashed near the Comoros in 2009, killing 152. She was found clinging to wreckage after floating in the ocean for 13 hours.
- Jim Polehinke was the co-pilot and sole survivor of a 2006 Comair flight that crashed in Lexington, Kentucky, killing 49.
