After Mali Coup, Mutineers Pledge Fresh Elections

JOHANNESBURG—Military officers who led a coup in Mali that pressured the resignation of President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita disclosed themselves Wednesday, pledging to quickly organize fresh elections and tame the twin political and stability crises that have gripped this strategically critical West African country.

Dressed in beat fatigues and sitting behind a wooden desk, five soldiers appeared on point out tv shortly after sunrise. A spokesman for the mutineers, contacting themselves the National Committee for the Salvation of the People, claimed they had made a decision to act to avert Mali from slipping further into “chaos, anarchy and insecurity.”

Shortly after the eight a.m. handle, the junta sealed off Mali from the outdoors world, shutting its land and air borders that recently ended up reopened after the coronavirus outbreak.

Affirmation of the coup plunges Mali into a new disaster that could reverberate across a battle-scarred location, further undermining a flagging counterinsurgency hard work backed by France and the U.S. The information brought condemnations and responses from some of Mali’s vital allies, all of which had backed Mr. Keita even with months of swelling popular protests towards his rule.

Fresh instability in Mali is the most recent signal of the deteriorating stability condition across much of the Sahel, the arid geographical band that stretches across Africa south of the Sahara.