At Least 11 Dead in Mali as Soldiers End Standoff

Gunmen in Mali have killed at least five people in an attack on a hotel in the central town of Sevare, officials say.

A Malian army spokesman said yesterday an east European and three other personnel from a UN peacekeeping operation were believed to have escaped from the hotel. “We freed the four hostages”.

Suspected Islamist militants stormed the hotel on Friday, around 600 kilometres north-east of the capital Bamako, killing five Malian soldiers and seizing an unknown number of hostages.

A Russian diplomat said a Russian citizen was among the hostages.

A number of people held by gunmen during the standoff were earlier freed, and at least five foreigners evacuated from the site, according to Malian military sources.

The militants killed 5 government soldiers and held few as the hostages.

The BBC’s Alex Duval Smith in Mali said the town, which is about 600km north-east of the capital, Bamako, was a trading hub that serves the historic riverside city of Mopti. That push provoked Mali’s former colonizer, France, to send 3,000 soldiers into the country, a surprise operation that forced the Islamists to retreat back into the desert.

“It’s a troubling sign that the armed Islamist groups are intent on stepping up the pressure both on the Malian government and on the United Nations and French presence”, said Bruce Whitehouse, Mali expert and associate professor at Lehigh University.

Islamic extremists launched the attack on Friday at the hotel in Sevare, about 375 miles north of Bamako. Russian news agencies, citing a press attache at Moscow’s embassy in Mali, said a Russian hostage employed by the airline UTair was among those freed on Saturday.

The group had claimed responsibility for two previous attacks in northwestern and southern Mali on June 27 and 28 respectively, in which a total of six people were killed.

Describing the security forces’ operation early on Saturday, a Sevare resident living near the hotel told Reuters: “The assault… took place between 04:00 and 05:00 this morning (04:00-05:00 GMT)”.

Northern Mali fell under the control of jihadis in 2012 but a French-led offensive ousted them from power in early 2013.