Gabon’s ailing leader departs Saudi Arabia for Morocco

RIYADH (AA) - Gabonese President Ali Bongo has left Saudi Arabia, where he had stayed for a month and received medical treatment for an apparent health disorder, the Saudi Press Agency (SPA) reported Wednesday evening.

According to the SPA, Bongo, 59, left Saudi Arabia via Riyadh’s King Salman Airbase without announcing his next destination.

In a statement, however, Morocco’s Foreign Ministry said Bongo would next head to Rabat for a “period of convalescence”.

In a Tuesday Facebook post, Bongo’s wife Sylvia appeared to confirm the planned visit to Morocco, saying her husband had decided to continue his treatment in Morocco after consulting with his family.

Bongo’s visit to Morocco, his wife said, had come at the invitation of Moroccan King Mohammed VI.

Earlier this month, the Gabonese government announced that Bongo had suffered “fatigue” and “persistent vertigo” since arriving in Saudi Arabia in late October.

Soon after his arrival, he reportedly checked in to Riyadh’s King Faisal Hospital for treatment.

Bongo came to power in Gabon in elections held following the death of his father, Omar Bongo, in 2009, who had ruled the central African country for 41 years.

Gabon has been rocked by sporadic violence since the 2009 poll, the results of which have been questioned by the country’s political opposition.

For the past 50 years, the Bongo family has dominated Gabon, where a third of the population lives below the poverty line despite the country’s vast mineral wealth.