A man armed with a knife has killed three people – two women and a man – in a terrorist attack at a church in Nice on the Côte d’Azur, reports The Guardian.
The killings happened at 9am on Thursday inside the Notre-Dame Basilica in the city centre.
One of the victims was reported to be a 70-year-old woman who was beheaded in the church. A man, believed to be the church warden, was the second victim. A woman in her 40s was critically injured and managed to run from the church but died of her injuries.
Police described the scene as a “vision of horror”. The national anti-terrorist prosecutor said an investigation had been opened into “killings linked to a terrorist organisation”.
The attacker was shot in the shoulder by police and taken to hospital.
The mayor of Nice, Christian Estrosi, said the man had said “Allahu Akbar” several times while he was being arrested and handcuffed by police.
He said one of the female victims had been “decapitated” but he had no details of how the two others were killed.
“We have two people killed inside the church … and a third person who was in a bar facing the church where she had taken refuge,” Estrosi said. “Enough is enough … we have to remove this Islamo-fascism from our territory.”
Also on Thursday, there were reports that a man carrying a knife and threatening passersby in the street at Avignon had been shot dead by police.
The shooting happened at 11.15am, just over two hours after the Nice attack. Police opened fire after the man reportedly threatened them.
Two weeks ago a history teacher, Samuel Paty, 47, was beheaded outside his secondary school after showing his class caricatures, including one of the prophet Muhammad, during a discussion on free speech.
His murder prompted the French president, Emmanuel Macron, to promise a crackdown on Islamist extremism, including shutting down mosques and other organisations accused of fomenting radicalism and violence.
The knifeman entered the church in Nice at 9am on Thursday and within 10 minutes had killed three people, one of them a sacristain (church warden). He was “neutralised” by police in the church at 9.10am.
A witness called David, who runs the Brioche Chaude restaurant, opposite the church, told BFMTV he had alerted the police.
“I was selling croissants when a man came in and said to me: ‘Sir, there’s a decapitated woman in the cathedral.’ I didn’t believe him at first but he repeated it. I went to the cathedral and saw the municipal police and called to them. They came quickly.
“I went back [to the restaurant] and pulled down the security grille.”
He added: “The person who came in [to the restaurant] was someone who had been in the cathedral who was very shocked. He just said: ‘Sir, there is a woman decapitated in the cathedral.’ That’s all. I was shocked. I’m still shaking.”