France terror: Who were the Nice attack victims?
A sheet of paper with the colors of the French flag reading ‘We are all France’ in Spanish, hangs among flowers outside the French embassy in Madrid, Saturday, July 16, 2016. As new details emerged Friday about the Tunisian man who drove a truck through crowds celebrating Bastille Day in Nice, killing at least 80 people and wounding hundreds others, French leaders extended a state of emergency imposed after the Nov. 13 Paris attacks and vowed to deploy thousands of police reservists on the streets. AP
PARIS, France — Victims of the Nice truck attack included three generations of a family out for a stroll, an 11-year-old boy from Texas and a French father protecting his pregnant wife.
The Bastille Day assault killed 84 people of all ages and nationalities — including 10 children and teenagers — who had been out enjoying a fireworks display on a warm summer evening.
More than 200 people were also injured when the Tunisian-born driver slammed his truck into the crowd on the seaside promenade.
READ: France mourns 84 dead in Nice truck attack | ISIS claims Nice killer driver was its ‘soldier’
As investigators piece together a clearer picture of Thursday’s horror, details of some of the victims have also emerged.
Here is where they came from and what we know so far:
Tunisia
Olfa Bent Souayah Khalfallah, 31, was with her four-year-old son on a family holiday from their home in Lyon, France, when they were hit by the lorry. “I have called everywhere, the hospitals, police stations and on Facebook,” his desperate father told AFP. “It is 48 hours now. My wife is dead and where is my son?”. Hours later he discovered his son too was dead.
Bilal Labaoui, 25, from the central town of Kasserine, was with his brother Walid when the lorry careered towards them. Walid spent the night kneeling on the road by his brother’s body, according to the French daily Le Monde.
Mechanic Mohamed Toukabri, who was in his fifties, came from Beja in the north of Tunisia, and worked in Nice.
France
Timothe Fournier, 27, from Paris died after pushing his seven-months-pregnant wife out of the truck’s deadly path, his cousin Anais told AFP. “He was a great guy… a young dreamer but someone who was always there for his family,” she said.
Grandparents Francois, 82, and Christiane Locatelli, 78, their daughter Veronique Lion, 55, and grandson Michael Pellegrini died alongside Veronique’s parents-in-law, Gisele and Germain Lion. They were a “very well-regarded family, very involved in community life” said the mayor of their home town of Herserange in the east of the country.
Mehdi H was the 12-year-old son of a Nice football referee who also lost his sister-in-law in the attack. His twin sister is in a coma.
An unnamed young girl who was with the family on the promenade was also killed, the local referees’ association told AFP.
Laurence Tavet, 49, who was married to an Algerian, was killed with two of her grandchildren. One of them, Yanis, aged seven, had come to visit her on his holidays, the Algerian ministry of foreign affairs said.
Robert Marchand, 60, was an athletics trainer from Marcigny, a small town in centre of the country, whose club “he raised to a very high level”, mayor Louis Poncet told AFP
Also killed was border police commissioner Emmanuel Grout, 45, who was off duty, local media said.
David Bonnet, a 44-year-old fish farmer, was out with his new partner, who was slightly injured.
Germany
A teacher and two of her students from Berlin’s Paula-Fuerst School were killed, the Berlin mayor’s office said.
United States
Two US citizens were confirmed dead, the State Department said. A Texas-based newspaper identified them as Sean Copeland, 51, and his 11-year-old son Brodie who were on a family vacation in Europe. “They are so loved,” the family was quoted as saying in a statement.
Brodie played baseball and his father was a coach, the Austin American-Statesman reported.
The team posted a photo on Facebook showing Brodie relaxing in the surf on Nice’s pebble beach.
Switzerland
The Swiss foreign ministry announced the death of a Swiss woman named by local authorities in the town of Agno as 54-year-old customs agent Linda Casanova Siccardi, who was on holiday with her French husband. He survived. A Swiss child also died, the ministry said.
Algeria
Two children from Algeria died, the government said. Zahia Rahmouni, 70, also died. She was visiting her daughter and grandson in Nice when she was killed, said the foreign ministry’s spokesman.
They only survived because the little boy ran away from his mother as the lorry approached.
Poland
Sisters Magdalena, 21, and Marzena Chrzanowska, 20, were on holiday with their two other sisters when they were killed, the priest in their hometown of Krzyszkowice in southern Poland told AFP.
Morocco
Fatima Charrihi, 60, a Nice resident and mother of seven, was among the first to be killed by the driver, her son Hamza told local media. He described her as “an extraordinary mum” and a devout Muslim who practiced “real Islam, not that of the terrorists”.
Russia
One Russian tourist was killed, the foreign ministry said. News site Novosti-24 named her as 20-year-old university student Viktoria Savchenko who was holidaying in Nice with a friend. Her friend sustained injuries to her legs but was not in a serious condition, it added.
Ukraine
Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin said a Ukrainian national was killed and another injured.
Armenia
An Armenian citizen was also among the dead, the country’s foreign ministry said.
Madagascar
Mother-of-two Mino Razafitrimo, 31, was with her two children aged four and six, who survived. She was a “joyous person very involved with the Malagasy community in Nice”, a friend told AFP.
