Former Sudanese Prime Minister Sadiq al-Mahdi has been transferred to the United Arab Emirates for treatment after contracting coronavirus.
Al-Siddiq, who a political and religious figure in Sudan, was Prime Minister of the North African country from 1966 to 1967 and again from 1986 to 1989.
The National Umma Party (NUP), in a statement, said its leader was being treated in Sudan before a decision was made to take him abroad.
Some 21 members of the al-Mahdi family have also contracted the virus.
The family members are all in a stable condition.
Well wishers have tweeted quick recovery messages to al-Mahdi:
Sudan has so far 13,819 confirmed cases of coronavirus including 837 deaths.
Al-Mahdi had only returned to Sudan in 2019 after spending two years in exile following a coup that overthrew his government.
Mahdi, who heads one of Sudan’s oldest political parties, was the country’s last democratically elected prime minister.
He was overthrown in 1989 by an alliance of Islamists and military commanders that still form the nucleus of President Omar Hassan al-Bashir’s all-powerful National Congress Party.
Sudan’s government had accused Mahdi in 2014 of conspiring with armed rebels, a charge that could carry the death penalty, leading him to seek refuge in Cairo.
