Mali’s President announces resignation after armed mutiny

Early Wednesday morning, Mali’s President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita said he was resigning to avoid “bloodshed” after his arrest by troops in a sudden coup that followed a months-long political crisis in the fragile West African nation.
Keita appeared calm as he appeared in a state television broadcast after midnight to declare the dissolution of the government and national assembly, and said he had no choice but to resign with immediate effect
“If it pleased certain elements of our military to decide this should end with their intervention, do I really have a choice?” he said of the day’s events.

“(I must) submit to it, because I don’t want any bloodshed.”
It was unclear whether Keita was still in custody at the Kati base, which is a twist of fate was also the site of the 2012 putsch that brought the 75-year-old to power.

Rebel soldiers detained Ibrahim Boubacar Keita and Prime Minister Boubou Cisse on Tuesday afternoon and drove the pair to a military base in the town of Kati, near the capital Bamako, which they had seized that morning.
Jubilant crowds in the city center, gathered to demand Keita’s resignation, as they made their way to the 75-year-old’s official residence.

The Economic Community for West African States (ECOWAS) also condemned the coup in a statement, pledging to close land and air borders to Mali and push for sanctions against “all the putschists and their partners and collaborators”.
The 15-nation bloc — which includes Mali — also said that it would suspend the country from its internal decision-making bodies.

Source: cgtn.com