Former Mali president Ibrahim Boubacar Keita, who was ousted by the military in 2020 after a turbulent seven-year government, has died at age 76, officials said on Sunday.
The cause of death has not yet been clarified. A former aide said he was at home in Bamako.
Known by the initials IBK, Keita ruled the West African country from September 2013 to August 2020, when Islamist insurgents overran large areas, undermining his popularity.
Controversial legislative elections, rumors of corruption and a shaky economy have also fueled public anger and drawn tens of thousands of people to the streets of the capital Bamako, demanding his resignation in 2020.
Keita was eventually ousted in a military coup, whose leaders still rule Mali despite international objections.
“Very saddened to hear of the death of former President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita,” the country’s Foreign Minister Abdoulaye Diop tweeted. “It is with great emotion that I bow before your memory.”
Keita, who frequently traveled abroad for medical care, was detained and placed under house arrest during the coup, but restrictions were lifted amid pressure from the West African political bloc ECOWAS.
jihadists
Known for his flowing white robes and using many insults as he speaks, Keita won a resounding victory in the 2013 elections. He vowed to tackle corruption that eroded support for his predecessor, Amadou Toumani Toure, also overthrown in a coup.
Keita had a reputation for steadfastness, built up as prime minister in the 1990s, when he took a hard line with striking unions. But his tenure was marked from the start by a security crisis in which jihadists linked to Al Qaeda swept through the desert north.
French forces intervened in January 2013 to repel the insurgents, but the groups recovered. Over the next nine years, they killed hundreds of soldiers and civilians and, in some areas, created their own systems of government.
Jihadist attacks have sparked ethnic clashes between rival communities of herders and farmers, claiming hundreds of lives and underscoring the government’s lack of control.
Allegations of corruption have also followed Keita from the beginning of his presidency.
In 2014, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund froze nearly $70 million in funding after the IMF expressed concern over the purchase of a $40 million presidential jet and a loan for military supplies.
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