Faizel Patel, 2016-07-15
As the death toll from the Nice truck attack continues to rise, reports have emerged that many Arabs and Muslims were also targeted in the truck attack.
AFP is reporting that hundreds more have been wounded, 18 of them critical.
This comes as police say the 21-year-old Franco-Tunisian man behind the attack was known to them in connection with common law crimes such as theft and violence.
The Tunisian born man fired a shot into the crowd before driving 2km along the famed Promenade des Anglais seafront mowing down people who had gathered to watch a fireworks display during Bastille Day celebrations.
Police later shot and killed the driver.
Firearms, explosives and grenades were found in the truck.
Iranian journalist Maryam Violette who was present on the ground says she saw bodies on the ground with either the Muslim head covering hijab or some clothing of Arabic nature.
Al Arabiya is reporting that many on social media are taking her statements as evidence that that driver, a French citizen of Tunisian ancestry, was indiscriminate as he ploughed through the Bastille Day crowd near the French Riviera.
“There were so many Muslim people who were victims because I could see they had scarves over their head and some were speaking Arabic, one family lost a mother and in Arabic, they were saying she’s a martyr,” Violette, who works for the ZananTV, told the Guardian.
In a live television address on the early hours of Friday, French President Francois Hollande said the attack was clearly a “terrorist” act.
“There’s no denying the terrorist nature of this attack of yet again the most extreme form of violence.”
Hollande says he would extend France’s state of emergency, which has been in place since the deadly attacks in Paris last November, for another three months from July 26.
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