At Least 11 People Dead as Blast Targets Bus in Central Mali

By Staff, Agencies

An explosion killed at least eleven people on a bus in central Mali on Thursday, a region regularly rocked by extremist violence, according to police and local sources.

The bus was struck by a blast on the road between Bandiagara and Goundaka, in the Mopti area in the early afternoon, a security source said.

"We have just transferred nine bodies to the clinic. And it's not over yet," Moussa Housseyni of the local Bandiagara Youth Association had said earlier.

A police officer, who spoke on condition of anonymity, gave a provisional toll of 11 dead and many seriously injured.

Mali has long been struggling with a terrorist insurgency that has claimed thousands of lives and forced hundreds of thousands to flee their homes.

Mines and improvised explosive devices [IEDs] are among the terrorists’’ weapons of choice. They can explode on impact or be detonated remotely.

A report by the UN mission in Mali MINUSMA found that as of August 31, mines and IEDs had caused 72 deaths. Most of the victims are soldiers -- but a quarter are civilians, it said.