BISSAU - Guinea-Bissau President Malam Bacai Sanha, who took power of this tiny West African nation about two years ago after the previous leader was assassinated, has died, national radio reported Monday. No immediate cause was given but the 64-year-old president had been frequently hospitalized abroad.
Sanha won the 2009 presidential elections in the tiny nation of 1.6 million in a peaceful transition of power that marked a rare bright spot for Guinea-Bissau.
Since independence from Portugal in 1974, the nation has been wracked by coups and has become one of the main transit points for drug traffickers ferrying cocaine to Europe.
Sanha, though, became less known for what he did as president than for his frequent hospitalizations abroad, which were always described by aides as routine checkups.
In August 2009, he spent nearly three weeks hospitalized in Dakar, the capital of neighbouring Senegal, where medical facilities are better equipped than in tiny Bissau.
A diplomat said at the time that the president had become a regular visitor in Dakar, arriving on a special flight each time his blood sugar was out of balance. And a veteran observer with close ties to the president's entourage described the illness as "advanced diabetes" combined with a hemoglobin problem.
