CREDIT: REUTERS/ANIS MILI
Tunisia‘s President Beji Caid Essebsi said on Sunday (March 22) in Tunis that a third gunman involved in an attack that killed 23 people, mostly foreign tourists, at a Tunis museum last week was on the run.
Confirming reports that there had been a third attacker along with the two shot dead by security forces, Essebsi also said that a monument would be built to commemorate the dead.
“For sure there were three because they have been identified and filmed on surveillance cameras,” Essebsi said in a televised interview with Europe 1 radio.
“There are two who were executed and one who is on the run somewhere. But in any case, he won’t get far,” Essebsi said.
Tunisian authorities have arrested more than 20 suspected militants in a nationwide security crackdown since gunmen killed 23 people, mostly foreign tourists, in Wednesday’s (March 18) attack in the capital, the government said.
Hundreds of people gathered for a mass in the cathedral in Tunis on Saturday, lighting candles to remember the victims, who included three Tunisians, in a ceremony attended by government ministers.
Wednesday’s assault, the deadliest involving foreigners in Tunisia since a 2002 suicide bombing on the island of Djerba, came at a fragile moment for a country just emerging to full democracy after a popular uprising four years ago.
Reuters/EUROPE1 HANDOUT
