African dignitaries stranded in crisis-torn Mali

Several dignitaries, including Kenya’s Foreign Affairs minister, Moses Wetang’ula, is among leaders from different parts of the world who are stranded in the West African country of Mali after troops mutinied on Wednesday.According to international wire agencies, violence broke out in Bamako just as the second batch of dignitaries was being taken to the airport. An earlier group had left a day earlier thereby escaping the fighting.It is widely believed that a coup d’etat was in the making, but it is not clear whether the muting soldiers had taken full control of the city or the size of support they enjoyed.Wetangula was attending an African Union peace and security meeting and was said to be waiting for a flight bank home when the chaos erupted.Also caught up in the attempted coup were ministers from Niger and Zimbabwe. Ironically, the team of African Foreign Ministers was attending an African Union Peace and Security Council meeting called to discuss insecurity in Mali, which is facing an influx of arms from neighbouring countries.Rowdy Malian soldiers reportedly shot in the air before storming the offices of the state broadcaster.Earlier in the day, soldiers at a military camp about 15 kilometres from the capital, fired into the air as they demanded weapons with which they could face the rebels who had seized several northern towns.At the heart of the rebellion is growing anger at nomadic Turag desert tribes who have rekindled decades-old struggle for the liberation of their region. The soldiers, however, said they were not seeking the ouster of President Amadou Toumani Toure.The rebellion took on a new urgency after the nomadic Tuareg fighters who had been in deposed Libyan dictator Muammar Gadhafi’s army returned to Mali and took over a string of towns in the north and laid siege to other.