Nine killed, 60 injured in a triple suicide bombing in central Mali

On Saturday, a triple suicide bomb attack devastated around 20 buildings in the town of Sevare located in central Mali, resulting in the death of at least nine individuals and over 60 others being wounded. The spokesperson for the regional governor confirmed the details of the tragic incident.

According to Yacouba Maiga, the spokesperson, all the victims of the triple suicide bomb attack on Saturday in Sevare, Mali were civilians. The attack resulted in the death of at least nine people and over 60 individuals being wounded. There has been no immediate claim of responsibility for the incident.

Mali has been at the center of a violent insurgency since 2012 when a Tuareg separatist rebellion took place in its arid northern region. Sevare, where the triple suicide bomb attack took place on Saturday, is significant as it houses a major military base of Mali and also accommodates troops from the United Nations mission in Mali.

Since the Tuareg separatist rebellion in 2012, militants with affiliations to al Qaeda and the Islamic State have extended their reach to countries in the Sahel region located south of the Sahara and more recently to coastal states. The militants have seized territory, killed thousands, and forced millions to flee.

Images circulated on social media following the attack in Sevare, depicted several buildings, including a petrol station, that had been destroyed by the blast. The images also showed people receiving medical assistance for their injuries.

This recent attack in Sevare occurred only two days after the chief of staff of Mali's interim president and three others were killed in an ambush. Earlier on Saturday, the government of Mali announced on national television that the army had prevented "a terrorist attack" in Sevare.

The government of Mali announced that "three vehicles filled with explosives" were destroyed by army drone fire in Sevare, but it did not provide any information regarding the number of casualties caused by the attack.

In a separate incident on the same day, the Malian army released a statement stating that a military helicopter that was returning from a mission had crashed in a residential neighborhood in the capital city of Bamako. The army stated that it is still evaluating the crash site.