Mali’s ousted interim President and have been freed after they were detained by the military and forced to resign.
Interim President Bah Ndaw and Moctar Ouane were arrested and taken to a military base outside the capital on Monday, triggering a crisis in the West African country.
“The interim President and were released overnight around 1:30 am (0130 GMT). We were true to our word,” an official told AFP news agency on Thursday, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Family members confirmed that President Bah Ndaw and Moctar Ouane had been freed.
The two men have returned to their homes in the capital Bamako, those close to them said, though the conditions of their release were not clear.
The development came a day after military officials said the country’s transitional President and had “resigned” while in detention, a move the UN called “unacceptable.”
Ndaw and Ouane, tasked with steering the return to civilian rule after a coup last August, were detained by the military on Monday in what the international community called a military coup.
Over the past few days, the UN, along with the African Union and other international, repeatedly urged Mali’s military to release the transitional leaders.
International powers, including the United States and military ally, France, worried about worsening security in Mali and its neighbours, have condemned the arrests and threatened sanctions.
Ndaw and Ouane had been heading the interim government with the declared aim of restoring full civilian rule within 18 months.
The leader of Mali’s 2020 coup, Col. Assimi Goita, who has been serving as the transitional Vice President since September, seized control of the West African country earlier this week by deposing the two leaders in an unprecedented move.
The arrests, orchestrated by Goita, have jeopardised Mali’s transition back to democracy after a coup in August overthrew former President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita.
Goita, a Colonel, also led last year’s coup. He has promised that elections planned for next year will go ahead.
“They resigned, their release was scheduled, we have nothing against them,” said Goita aide Baba Cisse.
Ndaw and Ouane’s whereabouts will be kept secret to protect their security, Cisse told Reuters.
He declined to detail any plans for their replacement.
Goita ordered their arrest after a cabinet reshuffle in which two fellow coup leaders were sacked from their posts.
Their resignations coincided with a visit by an Economic Community of West African States delegation to press the military to back down.
ECOWAS has floated the possibility of sanctions against the officers responsible for the takeover.
Mali’s influential M5-RFP political coalition, which led anti-government protests ahead of last year’s coup, has opposed the leadership of Ndaw and Ouane, but it said it would strongly oppose Goita’s appointment as President.
Although considered by analysts to be Goita’s most likely future governing partner, the coalition said talks with ECOWAS had failed in part because of him.
“The discussions yesterday were unsuccessful because Assimi wants to be the President, which is contrary to the texts of the Transition Charter,” Nouhoum Togo, a spokesman for M5-RFP, told Reuters.
“Nowhere is it stipulated that the Vice President can replace the President,” he said.
The leadership question could exacerbate a security crisis in Mali’s desert north, where militants linked to al Qaeda and Daesh terror groups frequently capitalise on political uncertainty.
The militants have used Mali as a base from which to launch attacks across the Sahel in recent years. The arid region south of the Sahara saw an eight-fold increase in deadly attacks from 2015 to 2020. Over 5 million people have been displaced.
The EU military mission in Mali, which briefly suspended its training program in 2020 in the aftermath of the August coup, said on Thursday that Malian soldiers will continue to receive training.
“We are following the situation closely and are not taking any abrupt decision,” Lieutenant-Colonel Pardo, the mission’s spokesman, told Reuters.
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