African News Agency : Welcome

Nouakchott, 26 Nov - (ANA) - More than six weeks after being shot, reportedly by his own troops, President Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz returned home Saturday evening from France, where he'd been receiving medical treatment. After arriving at Nouakchott Airport in the West African nation's capital, Aziz met with government officials and legislative leaders, according to the state-run AMI news agency. He later traveled through the city streets in an open-air convertible, waving as the car rolled through a throng of supporters, some of whom held up pictures and cheered his return by dancing and shouting "Aziz!" The president discussed his health in an interview with Radio France International, as reported Saturday AMI, saying he is "generally OK and ... thankfully regaining my health." Aziz said bullets hit his intestines and possibly his colon, while his kidneys and liver were spared. "There were no complications or problems, but doctors (exercised) caution," he said, explaining why it took him so long to come back to Mauritania. "I ... lost a significant amount of blood due to injury, but most of the organs did not suffer." It was on October 14, that the president's convoy came under fire as it headed back toward Nouakchott. Witnesses told the independent Mauritania News agency they thought this shooting was an assassination attempt, because unknown men shot at the president and ran away. But state news reported that members of a military unit stationed alongside the road shot at the president. And Aziz himself refuted the possibility he had been targeted in a coup d'etat, saying on state television the next day that the shooting was not intentional and that he'd be OK. (ANA)