Eight dead as Mali hotel standoff continues

August 08, 2015 02:27

An unknown number of hostages was still being held in Mali by gunmen who stormed a hotel in the central town of Sevare, triggering a shootout that killed at least eight people, the military said Friday.

"The hostage taking is still going on. The death toll now is three dead soldiers and four wounded," a military source said. "Two terrorists have also been killed and there are three bodies lying in front of the hotel next to a burned-out minibus."

Earlier the authorities had said that four people, including two soldiers, had been killed at the Byblos hotel, which is popular with foreigners.

Attackers had stormed the Byblos hotel in the town of Sevare early Friday, in what military sources and local residents said may have been an attempt to kidnap Western hotel guests.

"It is a hostage-taking," the military source said, adding that two of the troops surrounding the Byblos hotel had been killed and another three injured.

A man wearing an explosives belt was shot dead, the source said, while the body of a white man was lying outside the hotel.

"It is still not over," the source added.

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