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.
CREDIT-GRABBER: China said its coast guard rescued the crew of a fishing vessel that caught fire, who were actually rescued by a nearby Taiwanese boat and the CGA Maritime search and rescue operations do not have borders, and China should not use a shipwreck to infringe upon Taiwanese sovereignty, the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) said yesterday. The coast guard made the statement in response to the China Coast Guard (CCG) saying it saved a Taiwanese fishing boat. The Chuan Yu No. 6 (全漁6號), a fishing vessel registered in Keelung, on Thursday caught fire and sank in waters northeast of Diaoyutai Islands (釣魚台). The vessel left Keelung’s Badouzih Fishing Harbor (八斗子漁港) at 3:35pm on Sunday last week, with seven people on board — a 62-year-old Taiwanese captain surnamed Chang (張) and six
RISKY BUSINESS: The ‘incentives’ include initiatives that get suspended for no reason, creating uncertainty and resulting in considerable losses for Taiwanese, the MAC said China’s “incentives” failed to sway sentiment in Taiwan, as willingness to work in China hit a record low of 1.6 percent, a Ministry of Labor survey showed. The Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) also reported that the number of Taiwanese workers in China has nearly halved from a peak of 430,000 in 2012 to an estimated 231,000 in 2024. That marked a new low in the proportion of Taiwanese going abroad to work. The ministry’s annual survey on “Labor Life and Employment Status” includes questions respondents’ willingness to seek employment overseas. Willingness to work in China has steadily declined from
LEVERAGE: China did not ‘need to fire a shot’ to deny Taiwan airspace over Africa when it owns ‘half the continent’s debt,’ a US official said, calling it economic warfare The EU has raised concerns about overflight rights following the delay of President William Lai’s (賴清德) planned state visit to the Kingdom of Eswatini after three African nations denied overflight clearance for his charter at the last minute. Taiwanese allies Paraguay and Saint Kitts and Nevis, as well as several US lawmakers and the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China (IPAC) condemned China for allegedly pressuring the countries. Lai was scheduled to fly directly to Taiwan’s only African ally from yesterday to Sunday to celebrate the 40th anniversary of King Mswati III’s accession and his 58th birthday, but Seychelles, Mauritius and Madagascar suddenly revoked
The number of pet cats in Taiwan surpassed that of pet dogs for the first time last year, reaching 1,742,033, a 32.8 percent increase from 2023, the Ministry of Agriculture said yesterday, citing a survey. By contrast, the number of pet dogs declined slightly by 1.2 percent over the same period to 1,462,528, the ministry said. Despite the shift, households with dogs still slightly outnumber those with cats by 1.2 percent. However, while the number of households with multiple dogs has remained relatively stable, households keeping more than two cats have increased, contributing to the overall rise in the feline population. The trend
RSS