Mali Junta Gives Sick Keita Ultimatum To Return Home

Mali’s ousted president Ibrahim Boubacar Keita has a maximum of three months to return home after receiving medical care abroad,

The colonels who overthrew the Mali’s ousted president Ibrahim Boubacar Keita, has given him a maximum of three months to return home, after treatment.

The 75-year-old leader was flown out to the United Arab Emirates, after he suffered a mini-stroke last week.

The time limit was agreed by the newjunta and the regional grouping the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), which has been mediating in the former French colony’s months-long crisis.

The ailing former leader was allowed a month away, to be extended to three months “solely on medical advice”, the junta, the National Committee for the Salvation of the People (CNSP), said in a statement.

Crisis Commenced for Keita, two years into his second five-year term.

Prior to the coup, he had been struggling with protests fuelled by his handling of a jihadist insurgency and his failure to turn around Mali’s floundering economy.

The CNSP said ECOWAS accepted to make sure  Keita would return home as soon as his medical stay was completed.

Keita was briefly hospitalised in the Malian capital Bamako last week after suffering the mini-stroke: a transient ischaemic attack.