Malian soldiers in Savare

A Ukrainian escaped from a hotel hostage standoff in Mali Friday, telling soldiers that three South Africans and a Russian were with him when gunmen stormed the building.

Eight people were killed, two of them soldiers, when the suspected jihadists stormed the hotel, popular with foreigners in the central town of Sevare.

The Russian Embassy in the capital Bamako which initially denied that any Russian was being held in the hotel later confirmed the story.

“We have confirmed information that a Russian is in the hotel,” Interfax news agency quoted embassy press attaché Victor Gorelov as saying.

Militants were holding as many as 10 hostages after carrying out the deadly attack on the hotel used by United Nations staff, Malian army and defence spokesmen said.