Shaken tourists flee Tunisia after seaside massacre

Tourists line up at Monastir airport as they prepare to leave Tunisia, a day after a shooting attack which took place in the coastal town of Sousse Saturday, June 27, 2015. Tunisia’s prime minister announced on Saturday a string of new security measures including closing renegade mosques and calling up army reservists as thousands of tourists fled the North African country in wake of its worst terrorist attack ever. Tourists crowded into the airport at Hammamet near the coastal city of Sousse where a young man dressed in shorts on Friday pulled an assault rifle and grenades out of his beach umbrella and killed 38 people, mostly tourists. AP

PORT EL KANTAOUI, Tunisia – Planeloads of shocked foreign tourists flew home from Tunisia Saturday after a beachside massacre claimed by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) jihadist group killed 38 people and prompted a major security clampdown.

The North African nation, which relies heavily on tourism, announced plans to deploy troops at vulnerable sites and shut dozens of mosques accused of inciting extremism.

Britain said that at least 15 of its citizens were killed in Friday’s gun assault in the popular resort of Port el Kantaoui and that the number “may well rise”. The attack represents Britain’s worst loss of life in a terror incident since the 2005 London bombings.

Tunisia’s health ministry said it had identified the bodies of 17 people from Britain, Germany, Ireland, Belgium and Portugal, as it tried to establish the identities of victims mown down in their beachwear.

British police have sent forensic experts and detectives to Tunisia to help identify victims and gather evidence.

The assailant pulled a gun hidden inside a parasol and opened fire on tourists on the sand and by a pool, in the deadliest attack in Tunisia’s recent history.

Prime Minister David Cameron warned that Britain needed to prepare “for the fact that many of those killed in the attack were British”.

He added: “These were innocent holidaymakers, relaxing and enjoying time with their friends and families.”

The shooting followed a March attack claimed by ISIS on Tunis’s National Bardo Museum that killed 21 foreign tourists and a policeman.

“It’s very painful,” said Alya, who lives in nearby Sousse. “The wounds were still healing from the Bardo attack, and now we’ve been dealt an even bigger blow.”

Another 39 people including 25 Britons, seven Tunisians and three Belgians were wounded in the attack, the health ministry said.

Tunisian Prime Minister Habib Essid said from next month armed guards would be deployed all along the coast and inside hotels.