Mali's former president Ibrahim Boubacar Keita, who led the West African country from 2013 until he was ousted in a coup in 2020, died at the age of 76 in the capital Bamako on Sunday, his family said.
The cause of death was not yet clear. A former advisor told Reuters that he died at home.
"President IBK died this morning at 0900 GMT in his home" in Bamako, a family member told Agency France-Presse (AFP) using the ex-leader's initials, with several other family members confirming his passing.
Keita, known as IBK, ran the West African country during a turbulent seven-year period that saw a violent insurgency take over large areas of the center and north, helping drain his popularity.
He was forced out by young army officers, led by Col. Assimi Goita, following mass protests over perceived corruption and his failure to quell a bloody insurgency.
Under pressure from the West African bloc ECOWAS, the junta that emerged from the rebellion released Keita on August 27 and returned him to his residence in Bamako, under surveillance. He suffered a mini-stroke the following month, and was sent to United Arab Emirates (UAE) for treatment.
The son of a civil servant, Keita was born in the southern industrial city of Koutiala, the declining heartland of cotton production.
After studying literature in Mali, Senegal and France – his great-grandfather was a French colonial soldier who died in the Battle of Verdun in World War I – Keita became an adviser for the EU's overseas development fund before heading a development project in northern Mali.
He campaigned against general Moussa Traore, Mali's former president ousted in 1991 by a military coup. He then rose through the ranks under Alpha Oumar Konare, the country's first democratically elected president.
As a socialist prime minister between 1994 and 2000, he quelled a series of crippling strikes, earning a reputation as a firm leader and helping to set up his landslide election in 2013 – when he finally ascended to the presidency after losing runs in 2002 and 2007.
