- Six people were killed during a shooting near a Tunisian synagogue.
- The incident happened amid an annual pilgrimage to the island of Djerba.
- The guman was a security guard at a naval installation on the island, and the motive for the attack is unknown.
A Tunisian security officer wounded in Tuesday’s shooting attack outside a synagogue on the Tunisian island of Djerba has died, TAP news agency reported on Wednesday citing hospital sources, bringing the death toll to six including the shooter.
The attack occured amid an annual pilgrimage to the island of Djerba that draws hundreds of Jews from Europe and Israel.
The attack was staged by a guard at a naval installation on Djerba who used his weapon to shoot a colleague and seize his ammunition before heading towards the synagogue, the Interior Ministry said in a statement.
The attacker fired indiscriminately at security units located near the synagogue, killing the two visitors and another security officer, as well as injuring five security officers and four visitors. Security forces then shot him dead, the Interior Ministry said.
The Tunisian foreign ministry said one of the visitors killed was French and one was Tunisian.
Video posted on social media that Reuters was not immediately able to verify showed frightened looking people standing in a courtyard as a gunshot rang out. Residents of the island said they had heard an exchange of fire.
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Authorities did not identify a motive for the attack but Islamist militants have previously targeted the pilgrimage in Djerba and have staged other attacks in the country.
Tunisia’s last significant attack was a blast targeting police outside the US embassy in 2020 that killed one officer. Two suicide blasts targeted police outside the French embassy in 2019, also killing one officer.
Islamist militants killed scores of tourists in two separate attacks at a beach resort and a Tunis museum in 2015.
In this picture taken on May 9, 2023, police secure an area near the Ghriba synagogue following a shootout on the resort island of Djerba. A police officer shot dead two people participating in an annual pilgrimage to a renowned Tunisian synagogue as well as two members of the security services before he was killed on May 9, the interior ministry said.
The annual pilgrimage to Africa’s oldest synagogue regularly draws hundreds of Jews from Europe and Israel to Djerba, a holiday destination off the coast of southern Tunisia, 500 km (300 miles) from the capital Tunis.
The pilgrimage has had tight security since al Qaeda militants attacked the synagogue in 2002 with a truck bomb, killing 21 Western tourists.
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Mainly Muslim Tunisia is home to one of North Africa’s largest Jewish communities. Though they now number fewer than 1 800 people, Jews have lived in Tunisia since Roman times.
US ambassador Joey Hood visited the synagogue on Monday along with the US envoy for monitoring and combating antisemitism, Deborah Lipstadt, according to US embassy post on Twitter.