Eyewitnesses Speak ‘It lasted for 10 minutes, 10 minutes, 10 horrific minutes when everybody was on the f loor covering their heads’
SOUTH African Luthando Mbatha, 25, is a lucky survivor of the attack at US rock band Eagles of Death Metal’s concert in Paris.
“I heard the gun shots and screams, a man — I couldn’t see his face — pushed me and threw me over a railing. He was shot dead on the spot. I did not know what to do, I could not turn back; he saved my life,” said an upset Mbatha last night.
Pierre Janaszak, a radio presenter, was sitting on the balcony with his sister and friends when they heard shots about an hour into the concert.
“At first we thought it was part of the show, but we quickly understood. They didn’t stop firing. There was blood everywhere, corpses everywhere. We heard screaming.”
Janaszak and his friends hid in a toilet, where they spent the next two hours waiting for police to storm the building and rescue the survivors. Around 80 people are believed to have died in the attack at the Bataclan concert hall.
“They had 20 hostages, and we could hear them talking with them,” said Janaszak. “I heard them say: ‘It’s the fault of [French President François] Hollande, it’s the fault of your president, he should not have intervened in Syria.’ They also spoke about Iraq.”
Another radio reporter described the “10 horrific minutes” when the blackclothed gunmen calmly opened fire. “It was a bloodbath,” Julien Pearce, of France’s Europe 1 radio station, told CNN.
“People yelled, screamed and everybody [was] lying on the floor, it lasted for 10 minutes, 10 minutes, 10 horrific minutes when everybody was on the floor covering their heads.
“We heard so many gunshots and the terrorists were very calm, very determined and they reloaded three or four times.
“People started to try to escape, to walk on people on the floor and try to find the exits, and I found an exit when the terrorists reloaded their guns. I climbed on the stage and we found an exit,” said Pearce. TRAUMATIC: French fire brigade members aid an injured man near the Bataclan concert hall in Paris on Friday
He took a teenager who was bleeding heavily and carried her to a taxi, telling the driver to take her to hospital.
He said he saw the face of one gunman, who was probably 20 to 25 years old.
Another survivor, 34-year-old Charles, said he refuses to be cowed by the terror .
“Life goes on. We won’t give in to fear. F**k them! I’m going to a concert on Tuesday. Keep rocking!”
But others face an agonising wait to hear from loved ones.
“My friend Claire was celebrating her best friend’s birthday. We don’t have any news, the phones are going to [voicemail],” said Yvan Pokossy, 24, a party organiser.
“I’m supposed to get engaged to her in three weeks. I don’t know if I’ll ever see her again.”
Marielle Timme hid in a bathroom for close to three hours before being rescued by police. “What scared us the most was that the last terrorist was killed just near us, so we heard all the conversation and gunfire. The bombs, too. We didn’t dare open the door to the police, because we didn’t know if it was them or the terrorists.”
Another woman hid in a side room with around 25 people. “There’s nothing but the sound of gunfire and carnage running through my head,” she said, shaking. — AFP with additional reporting by Loni Prinsloo IN SHOCK: People are evacuated by bus from the scene of the attack at the Bataclan
MARK Colclough, a 43-year-old BritishDanish dual citizen was with a colleague on Rue de la Fontaine when he saw a gunman attack a cafe: “We were about 20m away from the cafe when we heard a firecracker and I looked around and I could see a man, maybe 185cm tall, and the position made it clear he was shooting.
“He was holding up to his left shoulder a long automatic machine gun.
“Everything he was wearing was tight . . . Everything was toned black. If you think of what a combat soldier looks like, that is it — just without the webbing.
“He was left-handed and shooting in bursts of three or four shots. It was fully intentional, professional bursts of three or four shots.
“He killed three or four individuals who were sitting in COMFORT: Survivors hug near the Bataclan concert hall following the fatal attacks the chairs in front of the cafe. We saw them get shot down. They fell off their chairs onto the ground.
“He then swivelled and shot through a car driver’s window.
“We then saw him walk into the cafe. He swivelled right and then swivelled left and opened fire. That is when we dived for cover.
“We heard a total of maybe 15 or 20 shots, then everything went quiet.
“We went back after the shooting had stopped and all three people at the front were still lying there.
“We walked towards the white car that was shot. The driver had been helped outside the car by pedestrians and he had been propped up against a light pole and he was dying.
“Although our instincts were telling us we should go home to safety, we have a very strong sense of community and we thought we should go back.
“To my surprise, we were taken back into the cafe by police. It was pretty horrific. We could see people who were either wounded or severely wounded or dead.
“There were witnesses everywhere. Lines and lines of them. We were sitting next to people who were in a different place. They were caught underneath dead bodies. They had to crawl out. There were people on top of them dead.” — Source: guardian.com