Malian president, Ibrahim Boubacar Keita, on Tuesday, resigned from office after a military mutiny.
“If today, certain elements of our armed forces want this to end through their intervention, do I really have a choice?” he said from a military base in Kati outside the capital Bamako where he had been detained earlier in the day.
“I want no blood to be spilled to keep me in power,” he said in his address.
It was not immediately clear who was leading the revolt, who would govern in Keita’s absence or what the mutineers wanted.
Tens of thousands of protesters have taken to the streets of Bamako since June calling for Keita to resign over what they say are his failures to address worsening security and corruption.
However, international powers as well as the African Union denounced the mutiny, fearful that the fall of Keita could further destabilise the former French colony and West Africa’s entire Sahel region.
The soldiers took up arms in the garrison town of Kati and detained senior military officers, sparking fears of a coup after several months of anti-government demonstrations calling for the president’s resignation. Witnesses later said soldiers had surrounded Keita’s private residence.
Boubou Doucoure, who works as Cisse’s director of communications, confirmed the pair had been detained and had been driven in armoured vehicles to the army base in Kati, about 15 kilometres (9 miles) from Bamako.
Mali’s state broadcaster ORTM went off-line briefly before coming back on air in the early evening with pre-recorded programming.
The soldiers later moved freely through the streets of Bamako, making it clear that they were in control of the capital city.
Jubilant crowds in the city centre, gathered to demand Keita’s resignation, cheered the rebels as they made their way to the 75-year-old’s official residence.
Government workers fled their offices in Bamako as armed men began detaining officials, including the country’s Finance Minister Abdoulaye Daffe.
Prime Minister Cisse had earlier in the day called for dialogue with the soldiers. “The government is calling for calm and makes itself available … to engage in fraternal dialogue in order to remove all misunderstandings,” he said in a statement.
