INTERNATIONAL: Ibrahim Boubacar Keita, a former president of Mali who came to power on the promise of honest leadership but was ousted in a coup in 2020 amid allegations of corruption, has died on Sunday at his home in Bamako, the capital. He was 76. The cause of death was not yet clear.

The former Malian president’s death was confirmed on Twitter by his former minister of foreign affairs, Abdoulaye Diop, and by the United Nations peacekeeping mission in Mali. The cause was not made public, but Mr. Keita had for years sought medical treatment in the United Arab Emirates and was hospitalized in September shortly after being overthrown.

Mr. Keita, popularly known by the initials I.B.K., was president from 2013 to 2020, one of the most turbulent periods in Mali’s recent history. Coups bookended his tenure: One in 2012 precipitated a crisis that led to his winning an election in a landslide and another in August 2020 brought his arrest by armed soldiers who forced him to resign on television, later releasing him.

Mr. Keita was elected in 2013 with a mandate to stem the country’s many crises. But during his tenure, they escalated. Inaecurity has spiraled higher in Mali, a diverse, landlocked West African country known for its ancient manuscripts and evocative music.

His rise in 2013 followed a crisis in which coup leaders overthrew the government, then rebels seized Mali’s northern cities. Islamist extremists piggybacked on the chaos, imposing Shariah law in those cities, Timbuktu, Gao and Kidal. A military intervention by France, Mali’s former colonial ruler, initially routed the extremists from their northern strongholds, but since then insecurity has spread across the region.

When he became president, many Malians saw Mr. Keita, who had served as prime minister in the 1990s, as an honest man who could lead Mali out of the complex crisis. But his reputation became tainted by allegations of corruption and nepotism, and the months leading to his overthrow were marked by burgeoning protests over a parliamentary election he was accused of stealing by installing his preferred candidates.

It was perhaps his son, Karim Keita, who attracted the most resentment. When the president was overthrown, people broke into his son’s luxury home in Bamako, looting it and photographing themselves swimming in his pool.

Malians greeted the coup plotters as heroes. Mr. Keita had come to be seen as both a beneficiary and proponent of foreign interests, particularly those of France. In addition to his son, Mr. Keita is survived by three other children and his wife.

^{PHOTO: FILE OF OUSTED MALI PRESIDENT IBRAHIM BOUBACAR KEITA WHO HAS DIED AGED 76, ACCORDING TO A FORMER MINISTER}