Britons caught up in attack tell of their horror
BRITISH tourists and expats caught up in yesterday’s terror attack in Barcelona have spoken of their shock.
Tom Gueller, who lives on an adjoining road, had to flee the scene when he saw the van hurtling through the crowds.
He said: “I heard screams and a bit of a crash and then I just saw the crowd parting and this van going full-pelt down the middle of Las Ramblas.
“It wasn’t slowing down at all. It was just going straight through the middle of the crowds in the middle of Las Ramblas.”
Mr Gueller said many of the shops had pulled their shutters down and armed police were positioned on street corners, with cordons in place on the road.
Screaming
Susan Maclean, who is on holiday in Barcelona with her husband, said she was “very lucky” to have avoided the van as it ploughed through the crowds.
She said: “All of a sudden, there was this screaming and hordes of people, like a tidal wave of people, fear etched in their faces, running towards us, many of them yelling in Spanish.
“We had no idea what was going on. My first thought was this is a terrorist attack.”
Aamer Anwar, a lawyer from Glasgow, was walking down Las Ramblas which was “jam-packed” with tourists when the attack happened.
He said: “Police were very quickly there, police officers with guns, batons, everywhere. Then the whole street started getting pushed back.
“Police officers who got there just started screaming at people to move back, move back.”
John Ward, who lives on Las Ramblas, said: “There’s a very heavy police presence and what they’ve been doing is going from establishment to establishment knocking on the doors, knocking on the shutters.
“People have opened the shutters, they’ve been brought out on to the street and once it’s been established that they’re not the people they are looking for, they’ve been escorted away from this particular area.
“Now nobody is moving on Las Ramblas unless they’re under police escort.”
Steve Garrett was in a nearby market and sheltered in a bakery with several others.
He said: “A very large number of people ran into the market area in a big kind of way, lots of screaming, lots of shouting.
“The security guards immediately responded.
“It was reminding me a great deal of what happened in London, so we were very concerned about what might be going on next.”
Steven Turner, who works nearby, said: “I saw about three or four people lying on the ground.
“There are lots of ambulances and armed police with assault rifles around.”