Bamako: Gunmen went on a shooting rampage at the luxury Radisson Blu hotel in Mali’s capital Bamako Friday, seizing 170 guests and staff in an ongoing hostage-taking, the hotel chain said.
There were 20 Indians among the hostages, according to the external affairs ministry. “According to the current information, there are 20 Indians staying in the hotel. Our ambassador is continuously in touch with them and monitoring the situation,” said a spokesperson of the ministry. These nationals are employees of a Dubai-based company and were staying in the hotel permanently he said.
Security sources said the gunmen were “jihadists” who had entered the hotel compound in a car that had diplomatic plates.
“It’s all happening on the seventh floor. Jihadists are firing in the corridor,” one security source said.
Malian soldiers, police and special forces were on the scene as a security perimeter was set up, along with members of the UN’s peacekeeping force in Mali and the French troops fighting jihadists in west Africa under Operation Barkhane.
The Rezidor Hotel Group, the US-based parent company of Radisson Blu, said two people were holding 170 people hostage. The company said it was “aware of the hostage-taking that is ongoing” at the hotel. “As per our information two persons have locked in 140 guests and 30 employees,” the company said.
The shooting at the Radisson follows a nearly 24-hour siege and hostage-taking at another hotel in August in the central Malian town of Sevare in which five UN workers were killed, along with four soldiers and four attackers. AFP
