Those who managed to escape Friday's violence at the Bataclan concert venue described a horrifying scene inside, where more than 100 hostages were reportedly killed by at least two men with guns and explosives.
The men entered the venue with AK-47s, hurling explosives into clusters of music fans. The massacre ended around midnight
The gunmen wore flak jackets, according to eyewitnesses, and several yelled "This is for Syria" in English and "God is good" in Arabic, NPR reports. They didn't rush, witnesses said, killing their victims one at a time and taking time to reload at least three times.
Justin Pierce, a journalist, told BBC that "several men came into the concert" and were not wearing masks.
"They came in with what looked like Kalashnikovs and fired blindly on the crowd," Pierce recalled. He added, "They were shooting at us like if we were birds."
Pierce added that the shooters were "very young" and that the shooting "lasted between 10 and 15 minutes" and "was extremely violent and there was panic."
"It was a bloodbath," he added. "It was easy for them."
Several concertgoers fled the concert by American rock act The Eagles of Death Metal.
Another witness seemed to confirm this account to Le Monde: "I was at the show around 9:30, 9:40, when two or three people – two for sure – came in and started shooting blindly with automatic weapons, with a Kalashnikov … that lasted at least ten, fifteen minutes. They reloaded, they had the time they needed. They reloaded three or four times and that lasted at least 10 minute."
The witness said that "at one moment we took refuge behind the stage, we were blocked, and when the shots stopped we took advantage of the respite to take the emergency exit, and we saw lots of people in the street who were covered in blood, who had gunshot wounds."
Another witness told France 24 that she heard "loads of shots," but didn't think the shooting was real at first. When people started rushing for the doors, "that's when I saw people with blood all over their clothes, and another was shot in the leg."
The woman added: "I am very lucky to be alive."
0 comments:
Post a Comment