This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service - if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read the FAQ at http://ift.tt/jcXqJW.
Monday 29 Jun 2015 - 16:35 Makkah mean time-12-9-1436
 Tunis, (IINA) - British tourists and Tunisian residents have united in remembering the victims of Friday's beach massacre by gathering at the beach resort in the coastal town of Sousse, according to media reports.
Tourists and the local people came together for a candlelit vigil as people held posters saying “Peace” and “Sousse will never die”.
Many Tunisians also unfurled British flags as a show of support to the victims outside the Imperial Marhaba hotel, one of the two hotels targeted by killer Rezgui. Defiant, the group carried flags across the sand that was splattered with blood on Friday before placing flowers and tribute letters near the sunbeds where the attack happened.
Others bowed their heads in silence as they placed books and signs at the scene.
The memorial came after thousands of Tunisians gathered in the streets of Sousse last night to hold a candlelit protest against the barbaric bloodbath.
Waving banners reading 'no to terrorism' and unfurling British and Tunisian flags in a show of unity, they came together close to where ISIS militant Seifeddine Rezgui unleashed his killing spree by opening fire on helpless tourists.
The citizens of Sousse chanted and lit candles as a tribute to the dead, which include at least 15 Britons.
One said: 'What happened on Friday does not represent Tunisia. We are sorry for the families, the victims, they are our guests.' Witness accounts say Rezgui was seen laughing and joking among the midday bathers, looking like any other tourist. But he was actually carefully picking out the victims he would murder with a Kalashnikov hidden in his parasol.
Friday's attack was the worst in Tunisia's modern history and the second major massacre this year following the assault on the Bardo national museum in Tunis when armed men killed 22 mostly foreign visitors. Sousse, alongside nearby Hammamet and the island of Djerba, is the heartland of Tunisia's most popular beach resorts, drawing visitors from Europe and neighbouring North African countries like Algeria. Six million tourists, mostly Europeans, visited Tunisia's beaches, desert treks and medina souks last year, providing seven percent of its gross domestic product, most of its foreign currency revenues and more jobs than anything but farming. "This is a catastrophe for the economy," Salma Loumi, Tunisia's tourism minister, said. "Our losses will be great, but the loss of human life was even greater."
SM/IINA
|
No comments:
Post a Comment