French and Malian government forces have regained control of the strategic northern city of Gao after Islamic fighters tried to retake it.
Hundreds of residents gathered around the heavily damaged police headquarters building in the centre of the city where body parts lay strewn about a day after al Qaeda-linked militants launched a surprise attack on the city.
"We heard the gunfire and hid in our homes all evening," said Soumayla Maiga as he stood with his friends near the rubble of the police offices. "We were stunned when we came out and saw what happened."
The radical Islamic fighters, who had ruled Gao for nearly 10 months before they were thrown out at the end of January, returned to the city by crossing the Niger River in boats to launch their assault on Sunday. The fighting lasted more than five hours.
The walls and ceiling inside the police building were heavily stained with blood and the damage was consistent with an explosion, suggesting a suicide bomber blew himself up in the police offices.
Two civilians died from gunshot wounds, while 10 others were wounded, the local hospital confirmed. The body of a third man was taken away later.
Residents said he had been hit by a stray bullet while riding by on his motorcycle.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article