SLAUGHTERED ON THE BEACH
37 die in Tunisian holiday terror attack High proportion of victims will be British
AT LEAST five British tourists were among 37 people slaughtered by a terrorist gunman at a beach resort in Tunisia yesterday.
The attacker concealed a Kalashnikov assault rifl e in a beach umbrella and wandered among sunbeds before opening fi re indiscriminately.
Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond last night warned that the death toll could rise. He said a “high proportion” of the casualties were expected to be British “because of the nature of the resort”.
The terrorist, a 23- year- old Tunisian student thought to be linked to Islamic State, was believed to have used a jet ski or infl atable boat to land on the packed beach.
Among the victims, an English boy aged 16 was said to have witnessed the murder of both his parents and
grandmother. He was being treated in hospital last night for gunshot wounds.
Parents desperately tried to find their children and flee the bloodbath as the terrorist wrought havoc at the packed resort.
As tourists ran for their lives the gunman coolly followed them, walking into a hotel lobby before opening fire again.
Matthew James, from South Wales, was fighting for his life last night after being shot three times protecting his fiancee.
Security services exchanged fire with the attacker and killed him as he prowled the street outside the hotels looking for more victims.
A suspected accomplice was arrested and dragged away as one distraught woman screamed at him and tried to attack him with her fists. Tunisian officials last night said the death toll included British, Irish, German and Belgian citizens.
One victim was named last night as Irish mother- of- two Lorna Carty, who was in her 50s.
A total of 36 people were wounded in the assault. Thirteen Britons are being treated for their injuries and a 60- year- old man has died, according to hospital reports.
Tennis coach Ellie Makin, 22, from Ripon, North Yorkshire, had been staying in the Bellevue Park hotel for two days when she witnessed the gunman open fire just yards away.
She said: “I was on the beach in front of our resort when I saw a guy walking around with an umbrella.
“All of a sudden he dropped the umbrella and started shooting.
“There was screaming and people were running. I saw a guy shot in the stomach and then another in the head. There was blood everywhere.
“I was terrified, overwhelmed, shaken up and shocked. There are no words.” Ms Makin’s friend Debbie Horsfall, from Huddersfield, said the gunman was next to them on a sunbed. She said: “He was to the right of me. I saw a gun and an umbrella being dropped.
“Then he started firing to the right hand side of us. If he had fired to the left I don’t know what would have happened, but we were very lucky.”
Ms Horsfall added: “We got up and ran as fast as we could to our hotel. There was panic, everyone just got up and fled.” Other guests had gathered in the hotel foyer but the gunman fired shots into the building. Ms Makin said. “A guy ran up and started shooting again and everyone fled. He was just below us. We got split up. I ran to a room with a couple and their children and we hid.”
Elizabeth O’Brien, from Dublin, who was on holiday with her two sons, grabbed her children and ran when they heard gunfire.
She said: “We were on the beach and my sons were in the sea. It was about 12 o’clock. I thought, ‘ Oh my God, it sounds like gunfire’, so I just ran to the sea to grab my children. As I was running towards the hotel, the waiters and security guards on the beach started saying ‘ run, run run’ and we just ran to our room.”
Ridha Jegham, manager of the Royal Kenz Hotel, told a local radio station he saw more than one terrorist arrive at the beach on a jet ski and Zodiac inflatable boat.
His account was backed up by the manager of the El Mouradi Palm Marina Hotel, who said guests saw two gunmen “come from the sea” and attack the beach.
Steve Johnson, who is staying at the Imperial Marhaba Hotel, said: “We were just lying on the beach as usual and we heard what at first we thought was fireworks. People started screaming and running in all directions.”
He said police were now “removing a number of bodies from around the pool area”.
Olivia Leathley, 24, a chef from
Manchester, was inside the Bellevue Park Hotel with her boyfriend Mike Jones when she heard shots from the lobby.
She said: “Somebody just shouted run so we sprinted off in all directions. The gunfire was so close, it sounded like it was right behind us. I rang my dad, Glenn, screaming at the top of my lungs and telling him ‘ I love you, I love you'.
“My dad was saying ‘ I love you' and shouting prayers down the phone, begging ‘ Lord, protect them.' We eventually found an office building and hid in a room. As soon as I got somewhere safe, I threw up.”
Tension has been high in Tunisia since an attack on a museum in the capital Tunis in March which killed 23 people, including British solicitor Sally Jane Adey, 57.
Evil
The latest deadly assault took place at the Al Qantawi resort in the city of Sousse, around 85 miles south of Tunis.
The city attracts more than 1.2 million visitors a year. A suicide bomber blew himself up in a failed attack on the city's beach in 2013.
Mr Hammond chaired a meeting of the Government's emergency Cobra committee following the attack and another in France in which a man was decapitated at a gas factory by a terrorist carrying Islamist banners.
David Cameron offered “our solidarity in fighting this evil of terrorism”. He added: “Our hearts go out to the victims.”
The Foreign Office yesterday warned British tourists in Tunisia to stay indoors.
Maajid Nawaz, of the counterextremist Quilliam Foundation, said: “I think what has been happening in France is connected to what has been happening in Tunisia and elsewhere.
“It appears to be at the moment a coordinated attack by Islamic State on soft targets across the world.”