Former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro is recovering after undergoing surgery on Sunday, his sixth since he was stabbed while campaigning in 2018, his wife, Michelle, said in a social media post. "Surgery concluded with success," she posted. "My heart overflows with gratefulness for each one of you who have been praying." The procedure started at 8:30 a.m. local time (1130 GMT) and was scheduled to last six hours, but went on for about 12 hours because of the complexity of the surgery. The medical team said in a report that the procedure went well and that the former president was stable, without pain, and was in the hospital's intensive care unit.

Brazilian doctors said Monday that former President Jair Bolsonaro is conscious and remains in intensive care following a 12-hour surgery for a bowel obstruction the day prior. The far-right leader was hospitalized due to problems related to long-term effects of being stabbed in the abdomen in September 2018.

The extensive surgery, which doctors described as the longest and most complex since Bolsonaro was stabbed in 2018, was originally slated to run for about six hours on Sunday morning (local time), but lasted a total of 12 hours and extended throughout the evening. Brazilian doctor Cláudio Birolini, who led the surgical team that operated on Bolsonaro, informed reporters on Monday that the former president, who is currently at the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) of the DF Star hospital in Brasília, “is not expected to evolve quickly” and will remain in the ICU until he is fully recovered. The doctor stressed that Bolsonaro’s intestine was “quite suffering” and that the medical team believes that he had been “suffering from this condition for a few months.” “There are no great expectations of a rapid evolution. We need to let his intestine rest, deflate, resume its activity, and only then think about oral feeding,” Birolini said. “Now, we have this first phase of the post-operative period, which is the first 48 hours, which are quite critical. After 48 hours, we enter another phase, which is a little calmer.”