Armed men on Friday attacked a large hotel in the Malian capital Bamako. According to local media in and around the Radisson hotel shot in the center of the city. Soldiers and police surrounded the hotel.
FOREIGN GUESTS
FOREIGN GUESTSThe attackers, probably two jihadists have 170 people hostage. According to the French broadcaster RFI arrived the kidnappers in a car with diplomatic license plates. They entered the 190-room hotel Radisson Blu in there and opened fire on the seventh floor.
The hotel usually stay a lot of foreigners, including staff from airline Air France. Security forces have the complex surrounded and cut off from the outside world. A spokesman for the UN mission in Mali said there were casualties. There are also UN soldiers sent to the hotel.
In the impoverished Sahel country of Mali Dutch troops operate in the context of the mission of the United Nations to get the country back on track. The country virtually ceased to exist in 2012 when a new rebellion of Tuareg and a military coup were followed by a rapid rise of jihadists.
When those from the northeast across the country underfoot threatened to walk, France seized beginning in 2013 militarily. The French mission later that year turned into a UN mission (Minusma), where the Netherlands with 450 military personnel participates. Many of them are stationed in Goa, cicra 950 kilometers northeast of the capital Bamako.
© ANP/metronieuws.nl
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