Tunisian hotel workers who acted as human shields to protect tourists from an armed assailant have described how they tried to stop his deadly rampage in Sousse.
Ibrahim al-Ghoul, an 18-year-old paragliding instructor, was one of many Tunisians whose bravery on Friday has won tributes from survivors and other tourists.
Al-Ghoul ran toward the shooting while it was still under way, helping to form a human shield.
Photo: AFP
“At that point we opened our breasts against the bullets,” al-Ghoul said. “I felt he would not shoot at so many Arabic people in front of him.”
He and the others were unarmed when they blocked suspect Seifeddine Rezgui as they waited for armed police to arrive.
Earlier, after more than 15 minutes of gunfire inside the Imperial Marhaba hotel, there was a period of silence before Rezgui emerged and headed toward the Palm Marina hotel.
Staff there had already decided to confront him, and about a dozen formed a line, including entertainment organizer Yassine Sadkaoui.
“Someone from the Marhaba had shouted over to me: ‘Some people are still alive. Come on,’” the 25-year-old said. “At that moment, it was destiny. It did not matter if you got killed or not.”
In a photograph of their human shield, al-Ghoul stands with his arms outstretched, as if shooing away the killer. Their gamble paid off and Rezgui, 23, turned and walked along the beach, before jogging down a side street, shouting at Tunisians: “I haven’t come for you. Go away,” al-Ghoul said.
Another member of the group, Anis Gamaoun, a waiting supervisor at the Palm Marina, said the gunman moved back down toward the beach.
“My understanding is that he was someone who has a mission; his mission was finished and he was waiting for someone to kill him. He could have killed us all if he had wanted to,” said Gamaoun, a 39-year-old father of four. “It would have been better than killing guests.”
Minutes later Rezgui was killed by police, but not before a resident had dropped some tiles on him from a rooftop.
Tunis on Monday announced its first arrests over the attack.
Tunisian Minister of the Interior Mohamed Najem Gharsalli said authorities had arrested “a significant number of people from the network that was behind this terrorist” attack on a popular tourist resort in Port El Kantaoui.
“I promise the victims ... that these criminal killers will be brought before Tunisian justice so they are justly punished,” he said, adding that “anyone who provided any logistical or financial assistance” to the attacker would be arrested.
Additional reporting by AFP
The rivalry between Asia’s two biggest countries has extended into outer space. After India’s landing of its Chandrayaan-3 rover on the moon last month — becoming the first country to put a spacecraft near the lunar south pole and breaking China’s record for the southernmost lunar landing — a top Chinese scientist has said claims about the accomplishment are overstated. Ouyang Ziyuan (歐陽自遠), lauded as the father of China’s lunar exploration program, told the Chinese-language Science Times newspaper that the Chandrayaan-3 landing site, at 69 degrees south latitude, was nowhere close to the pole, defined as between 88.5 and 90 degrees. On Earth,
A cat wearing a black and yellow security vest strolls nonchalantly past security guards lined outside a Philippine office building waiting to receive instructions for their shift. Conan, a six-month-old stray, joined the security team of the Worldwide Corporate Center in the capital, Manila, several months ago. He is one of the lucky moggies unofficially adopted by security guards across the city, where thousands of cats live on the street. While the cats lack the security skills of dogs — and have a tendency to sleep on the job — their cuteness and company have endeared them to bored security guards working 12-hour
He is better known for rallying global support for Ukraine, but US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Wednesday picked up another favorite tool of diplomacy — his guitar. The lifelong music fan turned top US diplomat showed off his guitar chops, as he launched a new initiative of music diplomacy through which the US is to send top artists to countries including China and Saudi Arabia. After performances in the US Department of State’s formal reception room by the likes of jazz icon Herbie Hancock, Dave Grohl of Nirvana and Foo Fighters fame, and rising young pop singer Gayle, Blinken took
NEW ENERGY: Mark Lambert, the next deputy assistant secretary for China and Taiwan, is to head China House, which has been criticized for slowing policymaking Washington on Friday named veteran diplomat Mark Lambert as its top China policy official at the US Department of State at a time when ties between the two strategic rivals remain fraught over issues including Taiwan, trade and US curbs on Beijing’s access to US technology. Lambert is to be deputy assistant secretary for China and Taiwan, and is to head the Office of China Coordination, informally known as China House, the State Department said in a release. The division was created late last year to unify and better coordinate China policies across regions and issues, but has faced criticism for adding