Diarran Kone, a lieutenant colonel and spokesman of the Malian army, said the militants were holding at least one foreign hostage. “Three Russian pilots are believed to have been kidnapped”, spokesman Souleymane Maiga said in a text message.
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The body of a white male victim was visible in front of the hotel, a town resident said.
Mali has been fighting Islamist rebels in the north for a number of years.
“No one dares leave their house”.
Reuters/Adama DiarraA soldier stands outside La Terrasse restaurant (top C) where militants killed five people, including a French citizen and a Belgian citizen, in a gun attack in Bamako March 7, 2015.
Two of the gunmen have also been killed, BBC reported.
MINUSMA spokeswoman Radhia Achouri confirmed that gunmen had entered a hotel in Sevare but would not comment on the possible presence of UN peacekeepers or officials.
The Byblos Hotel, scene of the ongoing incident, was reportedly attacked early on Friday morning by gunmen who had spent the night at the nearby Debo Hotel.
A military spokesman said on Thursday five people had been arrested in connection with the attack.
The mission said “shots continue to be fired sporadically at the hotel and in its vicinity”.
The UN Multidimensional Integrated Stabilisation Mission in Mali (MINUSMA) has over 10,000 personnel in the West African country.
Islamic extremists attacked a hotel in central Mali near an army camp in Sevare on Friday, and several are dead, said a resident.
An unnamed UN source said that the attackers remained in the hotel and that gunfire continued to be heard three hours after the initial assault.
Militants led by a group known as al-Qaeda in the Magreb took control of vast areas of Mali in 2012 before being driven back by a French-led military force. The Ansar Dine extremist group later said it was behind those attacks.
Gunfire subsided by the early evening and soldiers surrounded the building in a tense standoff.
But the attacks have spread since the beginning of the year to the center of the country and in June to the south near the borders with Ivory Coast and Burkina Faso.
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Among those taken hostage in Mali, South African Stephen Malcolm McGowan and Swede Johan Gustafson were abducted in Timbuktu in November 2011 and have been held since by AQIM.
