African Leaders Hold Summit Over Mali's Political Crisis

The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) Monday held a virtual meeting to find a solution to the political crisis that Mali has been going through since June.

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This summit is expected to find a way out of the Mali crisis that does not contemplate the resignation of president-elect Boubacar Keita, who has been in office since 2013.

The presidents of Ghana, Ivory Coast, Niger, Nigeria, and Senegal traveled to Mali's capital, Bamako, to act as mediators in the political impasse. Their efforts, however, failed.

Until July 23, the government and opposition parties held talks to resolve their conflict. Since those meetings did not yield substantive results, the opposition leader Imam Mohamed Dicko threatens to resume protests against Keita in August.

"ECOWAS will take strong measures that will contribute to the resolutions of the crisis," Nigeria's president Mahamadou Issoufou, who is the ECOWAS chair, said.

In recent weeks, a disparate alliance of political and social groups, known as the June 5 Movement, mobilized thousands of people to the streets to demand Keita's resignation.

Regional leaders are eager to avoid further instability in Mali. This African country has been plagued by a conflict that began in 2012 and has since spilled into Burkina Faso and Niger.