Tunisia hotel attack: Gunmen kill ‘at least 27’ in shooting at seaside town of Sousse

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At least 27 people are reported to have been killed in a shooting at a hotel in the Tunisian seaside town of Sousse.

Tunisia’s interior ministry said two gunmen had opened fire on the beach between two hotels at the tourist resort, and that one was still on the run.

Security sources told the Reuters news agency that an exchange of gunfire had been reported at the scene, and that one gunman has been killed.

An official with the interior ministry said the death toll had risen to 27 and that it included foreign nationals. It was a dramatic increase from an earlier report of a handful of deaths.

Sousse sits on the Mediterranean Sea and is highly popular with British tourists, and is cited on holiday operator Thomson’s list of prime destinations for Britons in Tunisia.

Speaking to Sky News from the hotel, one British tourist travelling with his family said they had been told to remain inside and not to go down to the beach.

He said he was on the beach and heard what “we thought was firecrackers going off” 100 yards away, followed by an explosion from the next hotel complex along.

“There was a mass exodus off the beach,” he told Sky News. He said his son said he had seen someone get shot on the beach.

The attack comes only three months after three Islamist gunmen shot dead dozens of people at the Bardo museum in the country’s capital Tunis. The country’s tourist industry has been on high alert since the attack.

 

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