Daily Times

PARIS: French President Francois Hollande said on Friday that around 50 people were between life and death situation, after a lorry ploughed into crowds celebrating Bastille Day in Nice.

“As I speak 84 people are dead and around 50 are in a critical condition between life and death,” he said after visiting a hospital in the French Riviera city. A man slowed the murderous rampage of a man driving a truck through a crowd in Nice by jumping into the cab and seizing his revolver.

The 31-year-old Mohammed Lahouaiej Bouhlel was slowed when a heroic member of the public leapt onto the vehicle and wrestled with him. Police sources in Nice confirmed that the murderous charge of the lorry might have been even longer if it had not been for the courageous citizen.

They said that the man had hurled himself into the cab when the 20 tonne truck was held up by an obstruction. He wrestled with the driver and dodged his revolver-shots, diverting his attention from the public towards him and the police officers, who arrived on the scene. The driver was then shot dead by the two officers on scene.

“A person jumped on to the truck to try to stop it,” an eyewitness said. “It’s at that moment that the police were able to neutralise this fanatic. I won’t forget the look of the policewoman who intercepted the killer,” another eyewitness said and added that he saw the driver ‘looking very nervous’.

Police knew that there would be a gun shooting so they just killed him right away – not waiting for negotiations – they just opened fire on him. France has declared three days of national mourning over the ‘Nice attack’ on Thursday night after ramming the lorry through crowds for two kilometres, leaving the area strewn with bodies, including many children.

– What exactly happened? –

French President Francois Hollande arrived in the city on Friday morning and visited victims at a hospital. The terror began a little after 22:30, shortly after thousands of people had watched a firework display on the seafront in Nice, at the end of a day marking France’s national holiday, Bastille Day.

A large white lorry was seen driving erratically a couple of streets away from the seafront promenade. A German journalist saw events unfold from a hotel balcony, as the lorry doubled back from the direction of the airport, breaching the barriers erected on the promenade opposite the Lenval children’s hospital.

“He was driving really slowly, that’s what was astonishing,” said Richard Gutjahr, who described seeing the lorry being tailed by a motorcyclist. “The motorcyclist tried to overtake him and even tried opening the lorry driver’s door but then fell under the wheels of the lorry,” he said. A local MP spoke of hundreds of people being run over. Others scrambled to safety, on to the beach or into nearby hotels.

– Who was driving the lorry? –

The driver has been identified as a 31-year-old man of Franco-Tunisian origin, from identity papers found inside the lorry. He was named locally as Mohammed Lahouaiej Bouhlel. Police are yet to confirm the details but have searched Bouhlel’s first-floor flat close to the Nice train station.

The attacker was said to have hired the lorry from a rental company in Saint-Laurent-du-Var, a town to the west of Nice, two days earlier. They also found fake guns and a grenade inside the lorry. However, Bouhlel was armed with a pistol. It was not initially clear if he was acting alone.

– Who was behind the attack? –

President Hollande said that it was an attack whose terrorist nature cannot be denied. Anti-terrorist prosecutors in Paris have launched an inquiry for murder and attempted murder as part of an organised terrorist strike.