Death toll from Mali attack has risen to 77 – French army spokesman

PARIS The latest death toll from this week’s bomb attack on a military camp in northern Mali stands at 77, a French army spokesman said on Thursday, up from an earlier toll of more than 60 deaths.

“We regret to say that there are 77 deaths,” said Colonel Patrik Steiger, speaking to reporters in Paris.

France intervened in Mali in 2013 to drive back Islamist groups that got control of large swathes of the country a year earlier, and it maintains a large, regional operation aimed at stamping out insurgents.

(Reporting by Marine Pennetier; Writing by Sudip Kar-Gupta; Editing by John Irish)