General News of Monday, 23 November 2015

Source: classfmonline.com

No Ghanaian involved in Mali attacks - Foreign Ministry

Hannah Tetteh Hannah Tetteh

The Foreign Ministry has confirmed that no Ghanaian was involved in the recent terrorist attack in a hotel in Mali.

Gunmen, last Friday, held about 170 persons hostage for several hours and killed about 20 in the Radisson Blu Hotel in Mali’s capital city, Bamako.

In her first public interview on the matter, Hannah Tetteh told Citi News that Ghanaian citizens and troops in Mali are safe.

“I have had an update from our Ambassador in Mali. Even though our mission in Bamako is not too far away from the Radisson hotel, because the attack started earlier in the morning, the staff were advised not to go to work so they were nowhere near in the line of fire and they would have been the closest Ghanaians to have been impacted by the incident if it had occurred.

“We are part of the municipal operation in Mali. We have offices from the field engineers regiment and from the Airforce as part of the municipal operation in Mali but they were nowhere near the hotel so far as we know, the information we have to date, we do not have Ghanaian victims. Ghanaian troops are safe and our citizens are safe.”

Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb and its affiliate, Al-Murabitoun, said they carried out the attack.

More than 130 hotel guests and staff were freed when Malian special forces, French special forces and off-duty US servicemen stormed the hotel on Friday to break the siege.

Meanwhile, a 10-day state of emergency has been announced in Mali following the attack.