At least 84 people were killed and 202 injured in Nice, France on Thursday, July 14 when a tractor-trailer drove through a crowd celebrating Bastille Day.
Government officials identified 31-year-old French Tunisian Mohamed Lahouaiel Bouhlel as the driver. Bouhlel accelerated his truck into the crowd, driving over bodies for approximately two kilometers on Boulevard des Anglais, the main road that runs through Nice, the capital of the French Rivera. He was later shot to death by authorities. French police found explosives, firearms and grenades inside the truck, but now, unverified reports by several media outlets state that these were fake or inactive.
“We will not give in to the terrorist threat,” French Prime Minister Manuel Valls said Friday morning after a cabinet meeting led by President Francois Hallande. “The times have changed, and France is going to have to live with terrorism.”
No organized group has claimed responsibility for the attack.
From the 84 dead, 10 were children and teenagers, two Americans, two Tunisians and one Russian. Of the 202 people injured, 52 were in critical care and 25 were in intensive care.
The White House released a statement from President Barack Obama on Twitter Thursday evening condemning “what appears to be a horrific attack in Nice, France.”
“On behalf of the American people, I condemn in the strongest terms what appears to be a horrific terrorist attack in Nice, France, which killed and wounded dozens of innocent citizens,” President Barack Obama said in a statement. “Our thoughts and prayers are with the families and other loved ones of those killed, and we wish a full recovery for the many wounded.”
As France announced three days of national mourning, starting on Saturday, world leaders — from Pope Francis to Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany and Britain’s new prime minister, Theresa May — expressed sympathy and outrage.
Sadly, this all looks too familiar to the other terrorist attacks that happened in France, where a total of 147 people were killed in and around Paris in January and November of last year.