GAO, Mali: At least 50 people were killed and several dozen injured after an explosives-laden vehicle targeted a camp housing armed groups in northern Mali, a local official said Wednesday.
The morning blast hit the Joint Operational Mechanism base in the city of Gao. The base houses hundreds of fighters including members of armed groups that signed Mali’s 2015 peace agreement. The camp also houses Malian soldiers.
The local official called the death toll provisional. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to speak to the press.
“I am with the injured now,” Dr. Sadou Maiga at Gao’s hospital said.
“We have stopped all hospital activities to handle the many injured who are arriving. Some have died from their wounds, and others are in a very grave state. At this point, it’s not the toll of dead and injured that interests me, it’s saving who I can.”
French interior minister Bruno Le Roux described the blast as a “major and highly symbolic attack” in an area visited only days ago by President Francois Hollande.
Witnesses said the car bearing explosives breached the camp at around 9 a.m., just as hundreds of fighters were gathering for a meeting.
Dismembered bodies could still be seen two hours after the blast.
Officials were trying to mobilize Gao residents to donate blood.
The suicide bomber “succeeded in tricking soldiers’ vigilance” and penetrated the camp, said an army spokesman, Ly-col Diarran Kone.
On Wednesday, a new Human Rights Watch report said Mali’s government is failing to protect civilians in its northern and central regions from extremists who killed dozens of people last year.
The report describes how militants have occupied villages, attacked UN peacekeepers. The report also denounces rising levels of banditry, a phenomenon victims say is fueled by the slow implementation of the 2015 peace accord.
Security Minister Salif Traore declined to respond to the report’s specifics but said he is well aware of security challenges throughout the region.
A French-led military intervention in 2013 drove back militants, including Al-Qaeda-linked groups, that had seized northern Mali a year earlier.
However, militants still operate in the region and insecurity is aggravated by tensions between local rebel groups and pro-government militias.
Gao is a dusty town of 50,000 people on the banks of the Niger river. Underscoring the dangers of trying to bring stability to the southern reaches of the Sahel, the offices of the UN peacekeeping mission in Gao were flattened by a truck bomb in December.
The MINUSMA (Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali) has staff from 123 nations, costs $1 billion a year and is the United Nations’ most dangerous deployment, with more than 100 casualties before Wednesday’s blast.
The morning blast hit the Joint Operational Mechanism base in the city of Gao. The base houses hundreds of fighters including members of armed groups that signed Mali’s 2015 peace agreement. The camp also houses Malian soldiers.
The local official called the death toll provisional. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to speak to the press.
“I am with the injured now,” Dr. Sadou Maiga at Gao’s hospital said.
“We have stopped all hospital activities to handle the many injured who are arriving. Some have died from their wounds, and others are in a very grave state. At this point, it’s not the toll of dead and injured that interests me, it’s saving who I can.”
French interior minister Bruno Le Roux described the blast as a “major and highly symbolic attack” in an area visited only days ago by President Francois Hollande.
Witnesses said the car bearing explosives breached the camp at around 9 a.m., just as hundreds of fighters were gathering for a meeting.
Dismembered bodies could still be seen two hours after the blast.
Officials were trying to mobilize Gao residents to donate blood.
The suicide bomber “succeeded in tricking soldiers’ vigilance” and penetrated the camp, said an army spokesman, Ly-col Diarran Kone.
On Wednesday, a new Human Rights Watch report said Mali’s government is failing to protect civilians in its northern and central regions from extremists who killed dozens of people last year.
The report describes how militants have occupied villages, attacked UN peacekeepers. The report also denounces rising levels of banditry, a phenomenon victims say is fueled by the slow implementation of the 2015 peace accord.
Security Minister Salif Traore declined to respond to the report’s specifics but said he is well aware of security challenges throughout the region.
A French-led military intervention in 2013 drove back militants, including Al-Qaeda-linked groups, that had seized northern Mali a year earlier.
However, militants still operate in the region and insecurity is aggravated by tensions between local rebel groups and pro-government militias.
Gao is a dusty town of 50,000 people on the banks of the Niger river. Underscoring the dangers of trying to bring stability to the southern reaches of the Sahel, the offices of the UN peacekeeping mission in Gao were flattened by a truck bomb in December.
The MINUSMA (Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali) has staff from 123 nations, costs $1 billion a year and is the United Nations’ most dangerous deployment, with more than 100 casualties before Wednesday’s blast.
