French carriers resume Mali flights following Bamako attack

Air France (AF, Paris CDG) and Aigle Azur (ZI, Paris Orly) have resumed scheduled services to Bamako following an Islamist attack on the Radisson Blu Hotel last week which killed twenty-two people including six Volga-Dnepr Airlines (VI, Ulyanovsk Vostochny) crew that had been staying there.

Speaking to The Telegraph, a Malian hotel source, who was present when the attack occurred, said the gunmen had demanded to know on which floor the Air France crew were staying. A security guard directed them to the wrong floor but was later killed by the terrorists as a consequence.

The Air France crew, along with those from Turkish Airlines (TK, Istanbul Atatürk) and six others from Volga-Dnepr, were able to escape to safety. The siege was later broken by Malian commandos who raided the hotel and freed the surviving 170 hostages.

The attack was carried out by the al-Murabitoun group, an Al-Qaeda affiliate based along Mali's northern border with Algeria. The faction is led by Mokhtar Belmokhtar, a one-eyed Algerian militant who was behind the 2013 Amenas gas refinery attack in Algeria that killed forty hostages.