Nine civilians were killed and at least sixty others injured on Saturday in an attack by suspected terrorists on an airport and a military camp in central Mali, the regional governorate announced.
“A provisional report shows 9 dead and 61 injured, all civilians, as well as significant material damage,” he said in a statement.
The attack began around 5:30 a.m. (local and GMT) and ended around 8 a.m., according to military and local sources. The Malian army has since regained control of the area.
According to a local elected official, Senegalese soldiers from Minusma, the UN mission in Mali, intervened. Colonel Abass Dembele, governor of the Mopti region, went to the scene of the attack, qualified by his services as a “car bomb attack” having targeted an “air base” in Sévaré.
“He first visited the wounded admitted to the Somine Dolo hospital before then going (…) to the airport area where the booby-trapped vehicle packed with explosives exploded without reaching its target,” the governorate said. .
For his part, a Malian military source in Sévaré spoke of “a terrorist attack”. “It’s a complex attack that required a vehicle bomb and guerrilla techniques,” noted another military source.
Also on Saturday, a Malian armed forces helicopter returning from an anti-terrorist mission crashed in a residential area of the capital Bamako, according to the General Staff of the Armed Forces.
The crash occurred after an ambush that targeted a Malian army supply mission in the north of the country.
“Around 1:10 p.m., a Malian armed forces attack helicopter, returning from an operational mission, crashed in a residential area of Bamako,” the General Staff said in a statement.
According to the report of the crash updated on Sunday, 3 crew members died during the crash of the aircraft and 6 injured were counted among the civilians who were in the area, indicated Colonel Abdoulaye Maiga spokesman for the government. .