Mali’s President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita on Saturday visited people injured in Friday’s gun attack on one of the Malian capital’s top hotels that left 19 people dead, including two gunmen. Speaking to reporters briefly after visiting the hotel on Saturday, Keita said the attack underscored the global threat posed by Islamic extremists, especially coming just one week after teams of attackers from the Islamic State group in Paris killed 130 people while targeting a stadium, a concert hall, cafes and restaurants.
A cook at Bamako’s Radisson Blu hotel has said he escaped the attack by extremists by jumping out the window after being shot at. Mohammed Coulibaly said on Saturday that he had been in the kitchen cooking when a waitress ran in to say they were under attack. As he left the kitchen he encountered guests fleeing from the dining room.
“I asked everyone to go into the hallway and then suddenly we heard the footsteps of the jihadis behind us and there was total panic and people were running in every direction,” he said.
“I realized that if I didn’t leave the kitchen, the smoke would kill me so I waited until it was quiet and I jumped through the hotel window,” he said.
