At least one masked gunman sprayed bullets in a nightclub popular with foreigners in Mali’s capital early yesterday, killing at least five people including a French person and a Belgian national, officials and witnesses said.
France and Belgium condemned the attack at La Terrasse restaurant and bar in Bamako, while their foreign ministers confirmed the deaths of their nationals.
Belgian Minister of Foreign Affairs Didier Reynders denounced the “cowardly act of terror” and French Minister of Foreign Affairs Laurent Fabius said that “everything must be done to find those responsible for this crime.”
Photo: Reuters
“This attack was led by at least one masked person who opened fire on clients,” the UN stabilization mission in Mali said in a statement.
Two Swiss soldiers serving as UN experts were among nine people wounded in the attack, the Swiss Ministry of Defense said.
Two people who were at the scene are being questioned to determine what happened, a police officer said on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the press.
Two gunmen ran out of the nightclub and jumped into a car driven by an accomplice, witness Hamadou Dolo said.
They ran into a police patrol about a block away and fired on the police car, killing its driver, a civilian in the street and a private security guard outside a house, Dolo said.
La Terrasse is in Bamako’s Hippodrome neighborhood — where many expatriates live — and the nightclub is popular on a Friday night for salsa dancing.
French President Francois Hollande’s office said five people had been killed and others injured, and that security had immediately been tightened around French facilities.
A statement from his office said the French embassy has set up a crisis cell to help expatriates in Bamako.
Hollande said that he would meet with Malian President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita to show his support, much as the Malian leader visited Paris to show his support in the wake of the Charlie Hebdo attacks in January.
French forces led a military operation in early 2013 that largely expelled al-Qaeda-linked extremists from a vast area they had controlled in northeastern Mali.
The military operation in that region continues, and sporadic combat and clashes take place there.
Violence has been rare in Bamako despite the continued upheaval in the north.
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