Former Malian President Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta died in Bamako on Sunday at the age of 76.
"President IBK died this morning at 9 a.m. at his home" in the capital, where he lived withdrawn, away from public life, said a member of his family.
This information was confirmed by several members of his family and those around him.
The cause of death was not specified.
The death occurred "following a long illness", simply indicated in a press release the Malian transitional government, led by Prime Minister Choguel Kokalla Maïga who was minister of IBK before becoming his opponent.
In this text signed by the Minister of Territorial Administration, Colonel Abdoulaye Maïga, the transitional government hailed "the memory of the illustrious deceased" and announced that information on the funeral ceremony "will be the subject of a subsequent release.
President Keïta had been overthrown in August 2020 by soldiers who, after a second coup in May 2021, invoked the evils accumulated during the IBK era to plan to continue to lead the country for several more years.
A mandate marked by the jihadist insurgency
Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta had been ousted from power after months of mobilization within a population exasperated by violence of all kinds – jihadist, communal or villainous –, by the bankruptcy of state services and by a reputedly galloping corruption. The country was then plunged into a serious security and political crisis since the outbreak of independence and jihadist insurgencies in 2012.
IBK, which claimed to be from the left, experienced a meteoric rise under Alpha Oumar Konaré, the first president (1992-2002) of Mali's democratic era. In particular, he was its Prime Minister from 1994 to 2000. An unfortunate contender in the 2002 presidential election, he had his revenge in September 2013 by gaining access to the Koulouba palace, seat of the Malian presidency in Bamako, before being re-elected in 2018 against Soumaïla Cissé, then leader of the opposition and who died in December 2020 of Covid-19.
The residence of the former president, located in the south-west of the capital, was the scene on Sunday afternoon of an intense ballet of cars of personalities who came to offer their condolences.
The head of Malian diplomacy Abdoulaye Diop said he was "saddened to learn of the disappearance of former president Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta" and bowed, in a message on Twitter, "with great emotion in front of his memory".
The president of neighboring Senegal, Macky Sall, said on Twitter that he was "pained to learn of the death" of IBK.
The ex-president of Niger Mahamadou Issoufou, comrade of the deceased within the Socialist International, hailed “a cultured man, a great patriot and a pan-Africanist”.
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