2023-05-10 02:12:46
A Tunisian national guard and two worshipers taking part in a Jewish pilgrimage were killed on Tuesday evening (May 9) by another member of the Tunisian national guard who opened fire in front of the Ghriba synagogue on the Tunisian island of Djerba, announced the Ministry of the Interior. Ten other people were injured, the statement said. Among the victims, a 42-year-old Frenchman died.
The shooting took place shortly after the discovery on the port of Djerba, an island located in the east of the country, of the body of a member of the national guard killed and whose weapon had disappeared. The shots were heard from the Ghriba synagogue, panicking hundreds of worshipers taking part in the annual Jewish pilgrimage, which was coming to an end on Tuesday evening.
Police reinforcements were deployed around the synagogue to secure the pilgrims. The killer was shot dead by law enforcement. “Investigations are continuing to elucidate the reasons for this cowardly attack”added the ministry, refraining at this stage from mentioning a terrorist attack.
Following the attack, the French Embassy in Tunis announced that it had opened “a crisis unit” and set up an emergency number.
A major pilgrimage
According to organizers, more than 5,000 Jewish pilgrims, mainly from abroad, participated this year in the pilgrimage to the Ghriba, the oldest synagogue in Africa, which resumed in 2022 after a two-year interruption due to the Covid-19 epidemic.
Organized each year at 33e Jewish Passover day, 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, against 100,000 before independence in 1956.
Pilgrims also traditionally come from European countries, the United States or Israel. Their numbers were drastically reduced after a suicide truck bomb attack on the synagogue in 2002, which left 21 people dead.
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