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The attack occurred in Mali, on Saturday, April 22. The target was a Russian base of soldiers from the Wagner group. The Government attributes the action to jihadists operating in the area. So far no group has publicly claimed this fact.
A car bomb would have exploded early Saturday morning, near a camp of the Mali Armed Forces air base, in the city of Sevare, in the Mopti region, the government specified it’s a statement.
The official figures, which the entity made public, present a balance of 10 dead civilians, 61 wounded and 28 neutralized terrorists.
Communiqué N°048 du 22 avril 2023 du Gouvernement relatif aux récents incidents terroristes visant à annihiler la volonté des Autorités de la Transition à poursuivre la Refondation et la sécurisation du Mali. pic.twitter.com/nub047Um5S
— Minister of Foreign Affairs of Mali (@MaliMaeci) April 22, 2023
Colonel Abass Dembélé, governor of the Mopti region, at the scene of the attack “first visited the wounded admitted to the Somine Dolo hospital before going (…) to the area of the airport where the car bomb loaded with explosives exploded without reaching its target,” the statement said.
Some residents said they were on their way to pray in the morning at the mosque when they heard a loud explosion followed by gunshots. For example, Ousmane Diallo, a villager in the area, told the AP that he heard shots and that “it was total confusion.”
So far no group has claimed responsibility for the attack, but in the past similar events have occurred by jihadists operating in the area.
“It was a complex attack that required a vehicle bomb and guerrilla techniques,” a military source told AFP.
The base, identified for hosting Russian fighters and, particularly, the Wagner paramilitary group, has been operating together with the Malian army against the jihadists for more than a year.
“The target is the camp of the Russians and their planes. The camp is close to the airport,” a local politician told AFP, speaking on condition of anonymity.
For its part, Minusma, the UN mission in Mali, through a statement, “strongly condemned the attacks on April 22 against the Mali Armed Forces (FAMa) camp in Sevaré; and car bomb attacks, which have left civilians dead and injured”.
It also stated that it remains “ready to provide all the necessary support to the Malian authorities to carry out the required investigations.”
Days before the incident, four people died during an ambush in an area in the southwest of the country. The chief of staff, Colonel Assimi Goïta, president of the military-dominated transition, was one of the victims. Mali had been leading the military junta since August 2020.
The group linked to Al Qaeda, known as the Support Group for Islam and Muslims, claimed responsibility for that attack in its Al Zallaqa Media Foundation media outlet.
Mali has been plagued by jihadist attacks and violence since the outbreak of rebellions in the north of the country in 2012. The government called these recent attacks a “resurgence of perfidious terrorist incidents.”
With AP and AFP
