an attack leaves four dead, including a Frenchman, in a synagogue in Djerba

Two worshipers who were taking part in a pilgrimage to the Ghriba synagogue on the Tunisian island of Djerba were killed in an attack led by a gendarme, the Tunisian Interior Ministry announced on Tuesday (May 9th). The soldier also killed two of his colleagues and injured nine, before being shot.

The Tunisian Ministry of Foreign Affairs specified that the two civilian victims were “a 30-year-old Tunisian and a 42-year-old Frenchman”. The latter was a resident of Marseille, the city’s mayor, Benoît Payan, said on Twitter on Wednesday. The aedile has shares his “sadness and (her) anger after this attack”he added.

An open investigation

France has “condemned in the strongest terms this heinous act”also reacted the Quai d’Orsay on Wednesday. “Our embassy and our services are mobilized to support the family of our compatriot [tué] and to our fellow citizens affected by this attack”, continued the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Paris says stand “alongside Tunisia to continue the fight against anti-Semitism and all forms of fanaticism”.

The attack took place in two stages, according to the Tunisian Interior Ministry. The author of the shooting first killed one of his colleagues, and seized his ammunition. Then he went to the outskirts of the synagogue, where he opened fire on the security forces ensuring the security of the place and the faithful, killing two civilians and a soldier. He also injured four of the faithful and five of the gendarmes.

“Investigations are continuing to elucidate the reasons for this cowardly attack”, said the Tunisian Interior Ministry. This synagogue, the oldest in Africa, had already been targeted in 2002 by a suicide truck bomb attack that killed 21 people.