Malian former President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita (L) arrives at Capital International Airport in Beijing, capital of China, Aug. 29, 2018. Ibrahim Boubacar Keita is here to attend the Beijing Summit of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC). (Xinhua/Shen Bohan)

Mali's former president Ibrahim Boubacar Keita, who led the West African country from 2013 until he was ousted in a coup in 2020, died aged 76 in the capital Bamako on Sunday, his family said.

Mali's interim government issued a statement hailing "the memory of the illustrious" Keita, adding that the former president died "after a long illness."

Looming over most of Keita's presidency was the jihadist insurgency that has rocked the poor Sahel country since 2012. His toppling marked the rise of the military junta now under regional sanctions for failing to restore civilian rule.

Keita was forced out of office on August 18, 2020, by young military officers who staged an uprising at a base near Bamako before heading into the city, where they seized Keita and other leaders.

In an interview broadcast on state television Saturday evening, the Prime Minister of the interim administration Choguel Kokalla Maiga denounced the corruption and impunity he said marked the end of Keita's rule.

But on Sunday Foreign Minister Abdoulaye Diop said he was "saddened to learn of the death of former president Ibrahim Boubacar Keita," adding that "it is with great emotion that I bow before his memory."

Macky Sall, president of neighboring Senegal, said in a Tweet he was "saddened" by the news, while Niger's ex-president Mahamadou Issoufou, a former comrade of Keita's in the Socialist International, hailed him as "a cultured man, a great patriot and a pan-Africanist."

Politicians and other public figures went to Keita's home southwest of Bamako to pay their respects, with police guarding the entrances, according to AFP journalists at the scene.

The government statement said funeral plans would be announced at a later date.