Mali siege crisis: Hostages freed by security forces in Sevare town

Malian security forces on Saturday stormed a hotel used by United Nations staff and freed four hostages held there by suspected Islamist militants who had killed at least six people during their attack.

“MINUSMA is happy to announce that four contracted individuals have been picked up safe and sound”, Radhia Achouri said.

A senior source in the Malian army said the final toll had yet to be confirmed and would “probably” be higher.

“There are 12 dead in all”, an army officer told AFP after the operation at the Hotel Byblos in Sevare, listing the fatalities as five “terrorists”, five soldiers and two “white people”, whose identity was being checked.

Army spokesman Lt Col Diarran Kone told Associated Press that the operation to free hostages was ongoing.

Defense officials did not give the nationalities of the hostages freed in the early Saturday operation, which they said was backed by French soldiers.

The standoff started Friday when gunmen raided the hotel in Sevare after attacking a military site nearby, witnesses said. They also said an unknown number of hostages were still being held at the hotel.

Islamic extremists launched the attack on Friday at the hotel in Sevare, about 375 miles north of Bamako.

The government said they had detained seven suspected militants but the hostage situation was still “ongoing”.

The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry issued a statement based on information from its embassy in Algeria saying that the goal of the attackers was believed to be to take hostages from among the foreign citizens living in the hotel. Officials said those staying at the hotel included a Russian, a Ukrainian and French and South African citizens.

The attack, far to the south of the Islamist militants’ traditional desert strongholds, was the latest in what appears to be a growing campaign against Malian troops and United Nations personnel by remnants of an al Qaeda-linked insurgency.

In March, Islamist gunmen opened fire, accompanied by a grenade attack on a busy restaurant in Bamako which killed five people.

The hotel siege was the third attack in just a week in Mali, which is still struggling to restore stability despite a landmark peace deal agreed in June to end years of unrest and ethnic divisions.

In early 2013, former colonial power France sent troops to the North African country and – with the help of Chadian and other African forces – flushed the militants from Mali’s main northern cities.