Diplomats not confirming reports of dead Russian in Mali

Published Aug. 8, 2015 at 5:10 pm

Mali's President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita (C) holds a medal next to a patient's bed in a clinic in Kati, near Bamako, on August 6, 2015, as he visits soldiers injured in an attack on their camp in northern Mali on August 3, which left 11 soldiers dead.

Photo by AFP

MOSCOW - The Russian Embassy to Mali has not confirmed that a Russian citizen was among the three hostages killed as a result of a militant attack on a hotel in Mali.

‘We cannot confirm this information,’ the embassy’s press attache, Viktor Gorelov, told Interfax by phone on Saturday.

The embassy has been getting ‘a great deal of controversial information,’ he added.Reports of a dead Russian could emerge after he was mistaken for a Ukrainian citizen. ‘UTair had a mixed crew. It could have been a Ukrainian citizen,’ the press attache said.