The suicide car driver attacked the residence of UN peacekeeping soldiers in Mali.
At least 33 pro government militants were killed and around dozens injured in a car bomb attack on army base at northern Mali’s city of Gao. The victims were conducting patrols in the region to stop the violence. The targeted base also comprises of the army soldiers’ houses.
According to the United Nations peacekeeping Mission, the car blast happened when a vehicle packed with explosives detonated at a camp housing soldiers and members of rival armed groups in the city of Gao.
“It’s terrible”, aGao resident on the occasion said. “The attack happened while they were having an assembly. I’ve just left the hospital where there were bodies ripped to pieces and bodies piled up” Gao local further said.
Dr Sadou Maiga at Gao’s hospital told the Associated Press that “We have stopped all hospital activities to handle the many injured that 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”.
Since late 2012, the Gao is unceasingly uncertain incidents with sporadic attacks and kidnappings by local rebel groups, even after French military intervention.
In 2013, France government has sent their army to Mali at the request of the government there to prevent an advance by rebels on the capital Bamako.
French interior minister Bruno Le Roux described the blast as a “major and highly symbolic attack” in an area visited only days ago by French President Francois Hollande.
In southern Mali, this is not the pioneer military attack in Mali been targeted by rebels. In July 2016, around seventeen soldier were killed and around thirty were wounded in an attack happened over military base in the central town of Nampala.