Ailing Bolsonaro says he may need surgery

NATAL, Brazil: Brazil’s ex-president Jair Bolsonaro said Saturday that he will “probably” need surgery, after being hospitalized a day earlier in the northeastern city of Natal with what he called “unbearable” abdominal pain.

The former far-right leader said on X that he would “probably be operated on again” after being transferred Saturday to a hospital in Brasilia. He has undergone multiple surgeries since being attacked with a knife during his 2018 campaign for the presidency.

Earlier he was hospitalized in the northeastern city of Natal after complaining of “unbearable” abdominal pain, will be transferred Saturday to a hospital in Brasilia, a senator from his party announced.

“He will be transported by plane in the afternoon to Brasilia,” Senator Rogerio Marinho of the far-right Liberal Party told journalists a day after Bolsonaro took ill.

Marinho had accompanied the former president on a multi-city tour in Rio Grande do Norte state, but the trip was cut short when the 70-year-old Bolsonaro complained of “unbearable pain” linked to a serious knife attack he suffered during a 2018 election campaign.