Social media reports have it that the lights at the Eiffel Tower in the heart of France will be switched off on Sunday night to honour victims of the attack in the heart of London. The senseless attack killed seven people and injured 48 other, according to the company that is managing the monument. The made the disclosure on Twitter.
A statement from them read, “Tonight, at 12.45 a.m. I will turn my lights off to pay tribute to the victims of the London attack,” the Eiffel Tower’s Twitter feed said. The Paris landmark has been switched off twice already this week, once for the victims of suicide blasts in Baghdad that killed at least 42 people and most recently to honour the 90 people killed in a huge truck bomb in Kabul, Afghanistan.
Three assailants stabbed people at random after smashing into pedestrians in a van Saturday, killing six in a “terrorist” attack in central London before armed officers shot all three dead. As they rampaged through a busy night-life hub around London Bridge, the trio wore what looked like suicide vests which turned out to be “hoaxes”, said Mark Rowley, head of counter-terrorism policing.
“We believe that six people have died in addition to the three attackers shot dead by police,” Rowley said. Some 48 casualties were rushed to hospitals in the area, according to the London Ambulance Service. The injured included a British Transport Police officer who was one of the first responders on the scene and was stabbed in the face and leg.
The attack came just five days ahead of a general election and just minutes after the end of the Champions League final between Real Madrid and Juventus in an area teeming with bars where many fans were watching the football on television. Britain is on high alert only 12 days after a suicide bomber killed 22 people at a concert in Manchester, northwest England and ahead of Thursday’s general election, in which security is a major theme. It is the latest in a string of attacks to hit Europe, including in Paris, Berlin and Saint Petersburg. An eye witness told the BBC that, “They were stabbing everyone. They were running up and going-chanting ‘This is for Allah.’
