Africa’s richest man, Aliko Dangote,, has denied being held hostage in the Radission Blu hotel attack in Mali.

Three people have been confirmed killed in the attack according to an AFP report.

The business mogul said on his twitter handle that though he was in Mali on Thursday, he was not among the 170 people currently being held hostage by gunmen.The Radisson attack follows a nearly 24-hour siege and hostage-taking at another hotel in August in the central Malian town of Sevare in which five UN workers were killed, along with four soldiers and four attackers.

Five people, including a French citizen and a Belgian, were also killed in an attack at a restaurant in Bamako in March in the first such incident in the capital.

Islamist groups have continued to wage attacks in Mali despite a June peace deal between former Tuareg rebels in the north of the country and rival pro-government armed groups.

In mid-2012 northern fell under the control of jihadist groups linked to Al-Qaeda. They supplanted Tuareg rebels and imposed a brutal interpretation of sharia law on the region, with Bamako reeling from a military coup.