South African President Cyril Ramaphosa has been booked off from public engagements due to ill health, on the advice of his medical team, his office said on Wednesday.

• Ramaphosa, 73, returned to South Africa on Monday after attending the BRICS leaders' summit ​in India and was advised to rest and ​recover, his office said in a statement.
• The ⁠statement said Ramaphosa had asked cabinet ministers to ​represent him at scheduled public events where possible, without ​saying how long his absence might last.
• South Africa's deputy president, Paul Mashatile, is also resting on the advice of his ​doctors after a medical procedure.
• Foreign affairs minister Ronald ​Lamola will lead South Africa's delegation to this year's United Nations ‌General ⁠Assembly in Ramaphosa's absence, the South African Broadcasting Corporation reported.
• Lamola will arrive in the U.S. at a time of renewed diplomatic tensions after the U.S. imposed ​visa restrictions on ​some South ⁠Africans over what it called race-based discrimination.
• U.S. President Donald Trump's administration has made ​false claims that South Africa's white Afrikaner ​minority ⁠is being persecuted.
• South Africa rejects that, saying there is no evidence of discrimination against whites and that ⁠it has ​a right to put in ​place policies to address the legacy of centuries of racial injustice.