The death toll from Thursday night’s attack in Nice has risen to 84, with hundreds more reported injured.
France is in mourning on Friday after a lorry driver in Nice drove into crowds of people celebrating Bastille Day in the city.
The driver of the truck is reported to have driven for more than 2km along the promenade, where thousands had gathered to watch a fireworks display to celebrate France’s national day.
The attack on the Promenade des Anglais reportedly began around 10.30pm local time and the driver of the truck was later shot and killed by police, having also opened fire. The unmarked truck he was driving was found to contain guns and explosives.
“It had been a normal evening and we were just walking around,” Joel Fenster told the BBC. “Suddenly people started running, there were screams and police sirens and policemen shouting at us to evacuate.
“It was terrifying, especially because we didn’t know what was going on. At the time we only had heard some kind of gunshots and we assumed that there were people running around with guns.
“There was a moment when we were running and then people were running towards us from that direction and some people were just sitting on the floor looking for some way to get out of the way.”
A police officer has told Reuters that the man driving the truck was a 31-year-old Franco-Tunisian, born in Tunisia.
He was not on the watchlist of French intelligence services after last year’s attacks on Paris, but he had been involved in criminal activity such as theft and violence.
