AFRICAN BLOC SUSPENDS MALI FOR COUP, ASKS IT TO RETURN TO CIVILIAN RULE

ACCRA: West African leaders suspended Mali from a regional bloc after military officers wrested control of the country’s government, the second coup in the western African country in nine months.

The suspension will remain in force until the nation returns to constitutional rule, Ghana’s minister of foreign affairs Shirley Ayorkor Botchway told reporters in the capital, Accra, following an emergency meeting on Mali’s latest political crisis. Mali’s coup leaders are under pressure from regional authorities and Western partners to restore civilian rule.

The Economic Community of West African States, headed by Ghana’s President Nana AkufoAddo, urged the transition government, currently led by coup leader Assimi Goita, to appoint a civilian prime minister within days.

French President Emmanuel Macron, in an interview with French magazine Le Journal du Dimanche, threatened to withdraw his country’s support from Mali if “there’s no longer democratic legitimacy or transition”. France has a 5,100-strong counter terrorism force to battle insurgents in Mali and across the western Sahel region.