Moscow, AFP, 21 November 2015
Six Russians were among the 27 people killed in the hotel attack in Mali, the foreign ministry in Moscow said, saying that they worked for a cargo airline.
“Among those who died were six citizens of our country,” the ministry said in a statement, citing the Russian embassy in Mali.
It said that 12 Russians — all staff of the Volga-Dnepr freight airline — were caught up in Friday’s hostage-taking in Bamako, but six of them came out alive.
Those who died “were shot by gunmen in the restaurant literally in the first minutes of the terrorist attack on the hotel,” it said.
Volga-Dnepr is a private charter freight airline with 17 planes, according to its website.
Russian President Vladimir Putin condemned Friday’s jihadist attack in Mali in a message released by the Kremlin earlier Saturday.
In a message to Mali’s President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita, Putin “stressed that the inhuman crime committed in Mali’s capital again confirms that terrorism knows no borders and is a real danger for the whole world,” the Kremlin said in a statement.
“People of different nationalities and beliefs become its victims, and it is only possible to confront this threat with the broadest international cooperation,” Putin added.