20120522
AP
BAMAKO, Mali (AP) — Demonstrators forced their way into the office of Mali's interim president on Monday and attacked the elderly leader, who was later brought to a local hospital unconscious, a witness and one of the president's collaborators said.

Dioncounda Traore was brought into the Point G Hospital with an injury to the head, said Sekou Yattara, a medical student there. The interim leader was not conscious when he arrived at the hospital, Yattara said, adding that he learned of the president's condition from the doctors treating him.

A close collaborator to Traore, who could not be named because he was not authorized to speak to the press, said that he learned from the president's body guard that the president was injured when protesters broke into his office. The office is in a building next to the presidential palace.

Thousands of people protested at the presidential palace in Bamako on Monday angry about a deal brokered by regional powers that extended the time Traore would stay in power.

An Associated Press reporter saw protesters break into the palace compound. The reporter said that before the demonstrators broke in, the soldiers that were supposed to be guarding the palace made a hand gesture, indicating to the youth to go in.

The soldiers are part of the military junta that seized power in Mali in a coup in March, reversing two decades of democracy in one of the only stable countries in this volatile region of Africa. The junta agreed under international pressure in April to cede power to Traore, the former head of the National Assembly, as called for in the country's constitution.

The transition has been anything but smooth, as the junta has continued to act as the de facto rulers of the country. Over the weekend, the junta leader signed another agreement agreeing to step aside.

Traore also remains a divisive figure with the population at large, because he was the head of the national assembly under the former president, whose popularity had taken a nosedive over his alleged mishandling of a rebellion in the country's north.