First Tunisian tourists since 2015 outrage

BRITISH tourists can now book package holidays to Tunisia for the first time since a 2015 terrorist attack on a beach resort where a Gateshead grandmother was among 30 Britons killed.

Thomas Cook has restarted its flight and holiday programme to Tunisia following the Foreign and Commonwealth Office’s decision to downgrade its warning against travelling to the North African country.

The FCO had advised against all but essential visits since the attack in June 2015, where a radicalised Islamist gunman killed 30 British tourists in the coastal resort of Sousse.

Grandmother-of-four, Lisa Burbidge, from Whickham, was among those killed. But restrictions were relaxed by the FCO last year, and Thomas Cook is now selling package holidays from Birmingham to Endidha.

French, German and Belgian tourists have been able to buy Thomas Cook holidays to Sousse since the attack, as their governments did not issue advice telling nationals not to travel to Tunisia.

In 2014, some 440,000 people travelled from the United Kingdom to Tunisia, according to the Office for National Statistics. Demand was supposedly higher the next year, until gunman Seifeddine Rezgui’s attack, which killed a total of 38 holidaymakers. The Islamic State terror group claimed responsibility.

Howdon man John Graham was among the survivors. He had been on holiday with his ex-wife when Rezgui opened fire.

John, then aged 62, helped others run to safety but then suffered a heart attack and broke two toes when he fell on the sand. He saw Rezgui shoot fellow tourists and set off hand grenades.

Speaking in January 2017, he said: “I was supposed to die that day but by the hand of an unseen force the bullets and shrapnel from the attack missed me and killed all those around me.

“In slow motion I saw the bullets entering their jumping and shaking bodies as they all lay on their beach recliners - some asleep and most oblivious to their imminent death that was standing over them.

“There was blood spurting out of my newly made friends right before my eyes with the face of the assassin showing no emotion as he blasted death out of his deadly gun.”