The remains of the Prime Minister of Côte d'Ivoire, Hamed Bakayoko, who died Wednesday at the age of 56 in a hospital in Germany from cancer, are expected Saturday March 13 in Abidjan, the Ivorian presidency announced.
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Thursday March 11, the government had decreed a national mourning of eight days, from March 12 to 19.
The official program provides for tributes from the nation on Wednesday March 17, followed by the transfer of the body the next day to Séguéla (North) where it will be buried on Friday "
in strict family privacy
".
Hamed Bakayoko, who was also Minister of Defense, was evacuated to France on February 18 by special plane for "
health reasons
", before being transferred to a hospital in Germany last weekend, when the legislative elections in his country.
Despite his absence, he was largely re-elected as a deputy in his stronghold of Séguéla (north).
Hamed Bakayoko succeeded in July 2020 as Prime Minister to Amadou Gon Coulibaly, who died a few days after his return from hospitalization and a two-month convalescence in France for heart problems.
Appreciated in all camps of a country marked by strong political tensions, the opponents wished to salute his memory.
To read also: Hamed Bakayoko: "The Ivorians do not want to go back"
Former Ivorian President Laurent Gbagbo, on parole in Brussels after his acquittal at first instance by the International Criminal Court (ICC), “
postponed
” his return to the country scheduled for mid-March to “
fully associate, in the pure African tradition, in the mourning which strikes the Ivory Coast, with the brutal disappearance of Hamed
Bakayoko ”, underlines a press release of the secretary general of the Ivorian Popular Front (FPI, the party created by Laurent Gbagbo), Adou Assoa.