At least four people died and nine were injured on Tuesday evening on the Tunisian island of Djerba, during a two-step attack by a gendarme, the country’s authorities said.
At least four people died on Tuesday evening on the Tunisian island of Djerba, as a Jewish pilgrimage bringing together several thousand faithful ended in the Ghriba synagogue, the oldest in Africa. An attack that took place in two stages, explained the Tunisian Ministry of the Interior overnight.
The assailant, a gendarme, first shot and killed one of his colleagues in the port of the island. He took his ammunition and then headed for the synagogue. The shots were heard in the evening from the place of worship, causing hundreds of worshipers to panic.
• A Frenchman among the victims
Very quickly, police reinforcements were deployed around the synagogue to secure the pilgrims. But the assailant found himself near the place of worship and opened fire on the police. A second policeman was fatally shot and five were injured.
Two “visitors” of the synagogue were also victims of these shots. Overnight, the Tunisian Foreign Ministry said in a statement that the two dead were “a 30-year-old Tunisian and a 42-year-old Frenchman”, without providing their identities.
The French Embassy in Tunisia has opened a crisis unit, which can be reached at the following number: +216.31.31.51.10. Four people were also injured and evacuated to a hospital, the Tunisian Interior Ministry said.
• The assailant killed
The assailant, after killing at least four people and wounding at least nine others in one evening, was shot dead. His identity has not been released.
“Investigations are continuing to elucidate the motives for this cowardly attack,” added the Tunisian Interior Ministry, refraining at this stage from mentioning a terrorist attack.
• A synagogue already targeted in 2002
According to organizers, more than 5,000 Jewish pilgrims, mostly from abroad, took part in the Ghriba pilgrimage this year, which resumed last year after a two-year hiatus due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
Organized on the 33rd day of Passover, the Ghriba pilgrimage is at the heart of the traditions of Tunisians of the Jewish faith, who are only 1,500, mostly settled in Djerba, against 100,000 before independence in 1956.
Pilgrims also traditionally come from European countries, the United States or even Israel, but their number decreased considerably after the suicide truck bomb attack claimed by Al-Qaeda in 2002 which left 21 dead.
• A context of strong recovery in tourism
This new attack comes at a time when tourism is recording a strong recovery in Tunisia after a sharp slowdown during the pandemic.
After several years of deterioration due to the instability that followed the revolution in 2011, this key sector for the Tunisian economy was seriously affected after the 2015 attacks against the Bardo museum in Tunis and a hotel in Sousse, including the toll had risen to 60 dead, including 59 foreign tourists.
After the popular revolt of 2011 that overthrew dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, Tunisia experienced a boom in jihadist groups, but the authorities claim to have made significant progress in the fight against terrorism in recent years.
The attack comes as Tunisia is going through a severe financial crisis that has worsened since President Kais Saied seized full power in July 2021, shaking the democracy born of the first Arab Spring revolt in 2011.
