ROBBEN ISLAND, Nov 28: Former South African president Nelson Mandela on Friday returned with music stars from around the world to the island where he spent 18 years in prison to appeal to the world to get behind the fight against AIDS.

Nelson Mandela said the fight against the pandemic was a greater challenge than the battle against racial inequality and discrimination.

He was speaking on Robben Island, off Cape Town, on the eve of a star-studded concert to raise money for the fight against AIDS.

“South Africans fought a noble struggle against apartheid and triumphed to create a new racial democracy in which all people could live in dignity,” Mandela, flanked by the stars, told journalists.

“Today we find ourselves faced with an even greater threat in the form of HIV and AIDS which threatens our future on a scale never seen before. We are called to fight now on an even greater scale than which we fought apartheid.”

Saturday’s concert in Cape Town will feature Irish rocker Bono, US singer Beyonce Knowles, Irish pop band The Corrs, British band the Eurythmics and a galaxy of other stars.

The event is part of Mandela’s 46664 campaign — the 85-year-old statesman’s prison number under apartheid — which calls on all governments to declare a global AIDS emergency.

Some 6,500 people a day die from AIDS each day in Africa. The disease has so far killed 17 million people on the continent, while about 37 million Africans are infected with HIV, or have full-blown AIDS.

Some 40,000 people are due to attend the concert which will also be broadcast on television.

Mandela heaped praise on the musicians, saying they still had a social conscience despite being famous.

“The people who are here have not allowed fame and fortune to stop them from caring,” he said.

“They are ambassadors of new hope in the 21st century.”

The 85-year-old former statesman — who now devotes much of his time to social causes — called for a four-pronged approach to fighting AIDS, saying the world could take a lesson from the methods employed by the African National Congress (ANC) — which is now the ruling party in South Africa.

Mandela said the ANC ended apartheid through mass mobilisation, the underground, armed struggle and international solidarity.

“We must, and I quote, we must find equivalents of these in the fight against AIDS,” he said.

“The presence of these people demonstrates that we have international solidarity.”

Many of the stars had Mandela’s prison number stamped on their foreheads.

Mandela, however, admitted that he was not totally in touch with the music to be performed on Saturday.—AFP