The Malian leader was on Monday admitted to hospital after being beaten by protesters.

The attack on Mali’s acting President, Dioncounda Traore on Monday May 21 in his office in the capital Bamako that later led to his admission to hospital is drawing widespread local and international condemnation. President Dioncounda was beaten up by people protesting what they described as a transition plan imposed by the West African sub-regional body, ECOWAS last Sunday that will allow him continue as transitional Head of State for a year.

Radio France Internationale, RFI yesterday May 22 quoted Mali’s Prime Minister, Cheick Modibo Diarra as saying on national television on Monday evening that the Head of State did not deserve such treatment. While an Ivorian minister, Adama Bictogo who helped in brokering last Sunday’s ECOWAS-led transition agreement, said he could not understand how the President was beaten up right in front of his own guards. He qualified the incident as unacceptable. The former military junta leader, Captain Ahmadou Sanogo condemned the action of the protesters who were believed to be his supporters.

The BBC quoted Prime Minister Cheick Modibo Diarra as saying he felt ashamed that the Head of State had been beaten unconscious right in the presidential palace by civilian protesters. He appealed for calm, saying the country needed it most now. In an interview yesterday morning with RFI, the Burkina Faso Minister of Foreign Affairs and one of the ECOWAS mediators, Djibril Bassolé described the incident as a disaster, adding that he was shocked to hear of the attack barely twenty-four hours after the transition agreement had been signed. He expressed fears that given the prevailing situation, ECOWAS might be obliged to impose new sanctions on those seen to be blocking a smooth transition programme.

Reuters news agency cited a spokesman for the soldiers behind the March 22, 2012 coup as saying the Head of State’s close-protection officers had killed three people in the attack during which thousands of protesters entered parts of the palace compound unopposed and tore up pictures of President Traore. According to the BBC, the President was unconscious when he arrived in hospital with a head wound, but was later discharged.