This historic deadly Paris attack is terribly disturbing. A witness mentioned in a phone conversation with CNN that "The gunmen were shooting at us like we were birds. It was a blood bath, with bodies on the floor in the theatre". He says he didn't hear the terrorists say or shout anything, just shooting at random.
Two attackers were killed in the police raid and five suspected attackers "neutralized". The surviving gunmen are still at large and the number of terrorists at large remain unclear as of now. President Obama calls this "the attack on all humanity"
France declares state of emergency for the country and the borders and now currently closed.
At least 153 people have died in Paris in a seemingly coordinated wave of gun and suicide bomb attacks, prompting the French president, François Hollande, to declare a state of emergency and shut the country’s borders.
The most deadly of the incidents on Friday evening saw around 100 people killed at a concert by a US rock group when gunmen opened fire inside the Bataclan concert venue. Police later stormed the venue, killing two attackers and revealing the horror inside.
Officials said shots were fired in at least two restaurants and at least two explosions were heard near the Stade de France, where the national side were playing Germany in an international football match.
A police official told AP two of the incidents near the stadium involved suicide attacks, with three people reported killed.
Hollande called an emergency cabinet meeting before reportedly heading for the Bataclan theatre, which is near the offices of the magazine Charlie Hebdo, attacked by Islamist extremist gunmen in January. “This is a terrible ordeal that again assails us,” he said. “We know where it comes from, who these criminals are, who these terrorists are.”
Hollande had been due to fly to Turkey on Saturday for a meeting of the G20 group of nations, but cancelled the trip.
The authorities warned people to remain indoors where possible and closed the Métro system.
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The events brought immediate international condemnation, with the US president, Barack Obama, calling it “an attack on all of humanity and the universal values we share”.
The most significant death toll appeared to happen when up to two gunmen began firing during a concert by the US rock band Eagles of Death Metal, a spinoff group of the Queens of the Stone Age.
“It was carnage,” said Marc Coupris, 57, still shaking after being freed from the Bataclan venue. “It looked like a battlefield, there was blood everywhere, there were bodies everywhere. I was at the far side of the hall when shooting began. There seemed to be at least two gunmen. They shot from the balcony.
“Everyone scrabbled to the ground. I was on the ground with a man on top of me and another one beside me up against a wall. We just stayed still like that. At first we kept quiet. I don’t know how long we stayed like that, it seemed like an eternity.”
“It was horrible, there were so many corpses, I just can’t talk about it,” said a bearded man in a T-shirt as he ran down the street from the Bataclan in shock.
Citing French police, AFP reported that three people were also killed in an explosion outside the Stade de France. Crowds spilled into the field after the blasts were heard, and the PA announcer asked people to avoid certain exits.
Credit:AFP
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