Uncertainty in Mali as UN, AU call for officials’ release and opposition protesters again take to streets.
Rebel troops seized Malian President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita and Prime Minister Boubou Cisse in a dramatic escalation Tuesday of a months-long crisis.
Neighbouring states in West Africa, along with France, the European Union and the African Union, condemned the sudden mutiny and warned against any unconstitutional change of power in the fragile country.
UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres demanded the “immediate and unconditional release” of Keita and Cisse as diplomats in New York said the Security Council would hold emergency talks on Wednesday.
“We can tell you that the president and the prime minister are under our control” after they were “arrested” at Keita’s residence in the capital Bamako, a rebel leader, who requested anonymity, told AFP.
Boubou Doucoure, who works as Cisse’s director of communications, confirmed that the pair had been detained and had been driven in armoured vehicles to an army base in the town of Kati, about 15 kilometres (nine miles) away.
Mutineering troops had seized the base hours earlier before taking control of the surrounding streets and driving in convoy to the capital Bamako, according to an AFP journalist.
A 2012 putsch that opened the way to Keita’s presidency began in the Kati base — and fears quickly grew of another coup attempt in the notoriously unstable country.
Jubilant crowds in the city centre, which had gathered to demand Keita’s resignation, cheered the rebels as they made their way to the 75-year-old’s official residence.
As the day unfolded, the West Africa bloc ECOWAS, the United States and France released separate statements voicing deep concern about the turn of the events and urged against regime change.
French President Emmanuel Macron had also discussed the crisis with his counterparts in Nigeria, Ivory Coast and Senegal and expressed his “full support for the ongoing mediation efforts of West African states”.
His office had added that he “condemned the attempted mutiny under way”.
The AU said in a statement that it “forcefully condemns” the arrest of Malian political leaders, while the EU denounced what it called an “attempted coup.”
The United States’ envoy to the region, J. Peter Pham, joined the calls for restraint and echoed its opposition to any “extraconstitutional” change.
