Triple suicide bombings in the central Malian town of Sevare on Saturday left at least nine people dead and over 60 injured, according to a spokesperson for the regional governor.

All those killed and wounded were civilians, with no immediate claims of responsibility for the attack. Sevare is home to a major Mali military base and troops from the UN mission in Mali.

The country has been struggling with a violent insurgency since 2012 when a Tuareg separatist rebellion took root in its arid north. Since then, militants with links to al Qaeda and Islamic State have spread to countries in the Sahel region south of the Sahara and more recently to coastal states, seizing territory, killing thousands and uprooting millions in the process.

Images shared on social media showed several buildings, including a petrol station, destroyed by the blast, as well as injured people being given assistance. However, Reuters could not independently verify the images.

This attack comes two days after the chief of staff of Mali's interim president and three others were killed in an ambush. Earlier on Saturday, the West African country's government said in a statement on national television that “a terrorist attack” had been stopped by the army in Sevare, with three vehicles filled with explosives destroyed by army drone fire.

Separately, the Malian army said that a military helicopter returning from a mission had crashed in a residential neighbourhood in the capital, Bamako and that it was assessing the crash site.