Ousted President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita left Mali on September 5 for planned medical treatment in Abu Dhabi, diplomatic sources in Bamako said.

Keita, 75, was hospitalised in the capital Bamako on September 1, a week after he was released from detention by the ruling military, which ascended power in the coup d’état on August 18, ironically it was the same way Keita himself has chosen to defeat his competitiors eight years ago.

Mamadou Camara, the former chief of staff, said that Keita left Bamako on September 5 in the evening aboard a plane chartered by the United Arab Emirates at the request of Mali’s military commanders.

“It is a medical visit of between 10 and 15 days,” Camara underlined.

Keita’s medical condition has not been revealied. He had a benign tumour removed from his neck in 2016.

West African leaders, fearing the coup could set a precedent that would undermine their power initially insisted Keita be restored in his status, without considering widespread discontent with his rule, and accussation of endemic corruption, fuelling mass protests. Seemingly negociatiors proposal to re-establish Keita rule became increasingly irrelevant, and out of context, ignoring protests in the streets for months, demanding his resigantion.
The departue of Keita for «medical treatment» to UAE is regarded by many as a dignified way out to permanent exile, the epilogue of a period of his unseccefful and tumultius rule, the end, allowing Malians to move on, with new beginnings, implementing their demands for funcitonal democratic state.