Armed members of the FAMA (Malian Armed Forces) are celebrated by the population as they parade at Independence Square in Bamako, Mali on Wednesday. Photo: AFP

Mali's president said he was resigning to avoid "bloodshed" early Wednesday, hours after his arrest by troops in a sudden coup that followed a months-long political crisis in the fragile West African nation.

Rebel soldiers detained Ibrahim Boubacar Keita and Prime Minister Boubou Cisse on Tuesday afternoon and drove the pair to a military base in the town of Kati, near the capital Bamako, which they had seized that morning. 

Jubilant crowds in the city center, gathered to demand Keita's resignation, had cheered the rebels as they made their way to the official residence. 

Keita seemed calm as he appeared on a state television broadcast after midnight to declare the dissolution of the government and national assembly, and said he had no choice but to resign with immediate effect.

"If it pleased certain elements of our military to decide this should end with their intervention, do I really have a choice?" he said of the day's events.

"[I must] submit to it, because I don't want any bloodshed."

It was unclear whether Keita was still in custody at the Kati base, which in a twist of fate was also the site of the 2012 putsch that brought him to power. 

Neighboring states, France and the European Union all warned against any unconstitutional transfer of power as the coup played out on Tuesday.

UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres demanded the "immediate and unconditional release" of Keita and Cisse as diplomats in New York said the Security Council would hold emergency talks on Wednesday.

AFP