DEADLY SHOOTING IN A SYNAGOGUE

IN TUNISIA

The Tunisian authorities are investigating, Wednesday, May 10, 2023, to elucidate the circumstances of the attack carried out by a gendarme who killed three of his colleagues and two faithful in front of a synagogue on the island of Djerba, during the annual Jewish pilgrimage, before be shot.

Security forces “encircled the synagogue and secured everyone inside and around it,” according to the Interior Ministry. “Investigations are continuing to elucidate the motives for this cowardly attack,” added the ministry, refraining at this stage from mentioning a terrorist attack.

Preliminary investigation opened

Two worshipers taking part in a Jewish pilgrimage and two gendarmes were killed Tuesday evening by an agent of the Tunisian maritime guard who opened fire in front of the Ghriba synagogue on the island of Djerba, announced the Ministry of the Interior.

A police officer who was hospitalized after Tuesday's attack died of his injuries on Wednesday, according to a medical official quoted by TAP, bringing the death toll to five.

This synagogue, the oldest in Africa, had already been targeted in 2002 by a suicide truck bomb attack that killed 21 people.

"A preliminary criminal investigation has been opened," said Fethi Bakkouche, spokesperson for the court in Medenine, on which the island of Djerba depends.

The attack came in two stages as hundreds of worshipers took part in the annual Jewish Ghriba pilgrimage which was coming to an end on Tuesday evening.

A security device was deployed in the perimeter of the synagogue, closing all the roads giving access to it.

According to the Tunisian Ministry of the Interior, the gendarme who fired the shots first shot and killed one of his colleagues in the port of Djerba and seized his weapon and ammunition. He then went to the outskirts of the synagogue, about fifteen kilometers away, where he opened fire on the police who were providing security for the place, before being shot.

Two faithful, a Tunisian and a Franco-Tunisian were killed by the assailant's shots, and four others were injured and evacuated to a hospital, according to the authorities. Six gendarmes were also injured by the assailant's shots.

One of them succumbed to his injuries on Tuesday evening, according to the Interior Ministry.

Tourism affected again ?

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 –, compared to 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 2002 attack.

The attack comes as tourism is rebounding strongly in Tunisia after a sharp slowdown during the pandemic. This key sector for the economy had been seriously affected after the 2015 attacks against the Bardo museum in Tunis and a hotel in the seaside resort of Sousse, the toll of which had risen to 60 dead including 59 foreign tourists.