OREANDA-NEWS. President of the Rrepublic of Mali, Ibrahim Boubacar Keita, resigned after a military insurgency broke out in the country. The politician stated this during a televised address. “Do I really have a choice? Because I do not wish blood to be shed,” he said. Keita also dissolved national parliament and government.

On August 18, a military mutiny took place at the base located in the suburb of the capital city Bamako. Several high-ranking civil and military leaders were detained. After that, the military arrested Keita and the prime minister of the country, Boubou Cisse.

The oppositionists’ Movement of June 5  – Rally of Patriotic Forces, which protests against the government, refused to describe Keita’s detention as a military mutiny, saying that it was a popular uprising. “Ibrahim Boubacar Keita did not want to listen to his people. We even proposed an alternative, but he responded with killings,” a spokesman of the movement, Nouhoum Togo, explained.