Tunisia museum attack leaves 19 dead
TUNIS, Tunisia – Gunmen stormed a museum in Tunis on Wednesday, killing at least 19 people, including 17 foreign tourists, in the worst attack in Tunisia’s capital since the overthrow of the country’s dictator in 2011.
Armed men dressed in military uniform opened fire outside the Bardo Museum in the Tunisian capital, Prime Minister Habib Essid said.
The gunmen then followed fleeing tourists inside the museum building, holding several of them hostage.
Security forces ended the siege, killing two of the attackers, while two or three escaped the scene and were being sought, Essid said at a news conference.
No one has claimed responsibility for the attack.
The attack prompted thousands of Tunisians to gather late Wednesday in a main square in the Tunisian capital carrying flags and chanting “Tunis is free and terrorism is out.”
In a second news conference, Essid said the dead included two Tunisians, four Italians, one French, two Colombians, five Japanese, one Pole, one Australian, two Spanish and one body that was still not identified.
Poland’s parliamentary speaker, Radoslaw Sikorski, said seven Polish tourists had died, but the Foreign Ministry in Warsaw refused to confirm that number.
Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos confirmed the two Colombian deaths on Twitter.
Forty-four people were wounded, Essid said, including six Tunisians, 13 Italians, seven French, 11 Polish, one Russian and two South Africans.
The premier said some of the wounded are listed in critical condition.
The Bardo Museum, one of Tunis’ main tourist attractions, has a rich collection of archaeological finds. It includes remains from the famed city of Carthage, destroyed by the Romans in the second century B.C.
The museum shares an entrance with the country’s parliament, which was in session at the time of the attack. Lawmakers were evacuated by security forces.
Television footage showed people running for shelter behind police lines, while photographs posted on social media showed tourists apparently sitting against walls inside the museum.
“We are at war with terrorism and such a small minority won’t scare us,” President Beji Caid Essebsi said in a televised address.
He earlier visited the injured in the city’s Charles De Gaulle hospital, where he called the atrocity “a disaster that has befallen Tunisia.”
“We must start a general mobilization and completely finish off the terrorists,” Essebsi said.
The Islamist Ennahda party, a member of Essid’s coalition, condemned the attack and called for a national conference to “set a comprehensive counterterrorism strategy.”
French President Francois Hollande, speaking at the Louvre museum during an event to decry the destruction of artifacts by extremists in Iraq and Syria, expressed France’s solidarity with Tunisia.
“We are all impacted” by terrorist attacks, Hollande said.
Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi recalled that Tunisia was the birthplace of the Arab Spring and the only example of a successful democratic transition among the countries that experienced that wave of protests.
“Regardless of the assessments that will be made with more lucidity and calm, there is one fact: An attack on the democratic system, on the culture, on the moderation of the Tunisian government targets all of us,” Renzi said.
The attack is the deadliest to have taken place in the usually peaceful capital since the 2010-11 revolution against dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali.
Tunisia has a significant jihadist presence, but most clashes between militants and security forces have taken place in the mountainous west of the country near the Algerian border.
An attack by militants near the border killed four National Guardsmen last month.
Despite its population of about 11 million, Tunisia was estimated last year to have provided the largest contingent of foreign jihadists in the Syrian civil war.
Prime Minister Essid, who took office last month, has said dealing with terrorism is one of his government’s top priorities.