Madagascar’s President Andry Rajoelina has left the country, French radio reports

After a stopover on France’s Reunion Island, Rajoelina reportedly arrived in Dubai on Monday morning. 

Madagascar has been engulfed in a political crisis since late last month as Gen Z protesters led mass demonstrations against the crippling water and electricity outages in the country. Rajoelina’s sacking of the country’s energy minister and later the entire government in late September did little to quell the unrest. 

Groups of Madagascar soldiers joined the youth-led movement in the capital over the weekend and said that they would refuse orders to shoot.

Read more‘They couldn’t see who they were shooting at’: Police target protesters in Madagascar

FRANCE 24’s Madagascar correspondent Gaëlle Borgia provided details of the president’s escape.

Rajoelina “left in his helicopter from the presidential palace to the island of Sainte-Marie, in the east of the country, where a French military aircraft was waiting for him”, Borgia said, citing information obtained from Madagascar Aviation, a Facebook group for aviation enthusiasts that tracks flight itineraries.

“The transfer lasted a few minutes at the very end of the runway. No one saw the president board the military aircraft, and thanks to the French army, he was able to reach the island of Réunion. There, another plane was waiting for him,” Borgia said.

“A private jet from the German company Vistajet took the president to Dubai, where he arrived this Monday morning,” she added.

Speaking later on Monday in an address to the nation from an undisclosed location, Rajoelina, 51, said he had to leave the country for fear of his life after an assassination attempt. 

“I was forced to find a safe place to protect my life today. In all this, I never stop looking for solutions,” he said in a live address on Facebook.

Addressing his nation’s deepening political crisis, he called for demonstrators to respect the constitution. “There is only one way to resolve these issues; that is to respect the constitution in force in the country,” he said.

(FRANCE 24 with AFP)