France terror: Dying mum-of-3 who said ‘tell kids I love them’ was carried off by hero Muslim who then confronted killer
A DYING mum who told medics “tell my children that I love them” after she was stabbed by a suspected terrorist was helped by a hero Muslim who then bravely confronted the killer.
Simone Barreto Silva, 44, who had lived in France for 30 years after moving from Brazil and had three children, succumbed to her wounds outside the Basilica of Notre-Dame in Nice, south of France.
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She was among three people who were killed in the brutal attack at by suspected terrorist Brahim Aoussaoui, a 21-year-old Tunisian migrant, who stormed the church with a 12-inch knife.
Simone died alongside church warden Vincent Loques, 54, and an unnamed third victim who has been described as an elderly woman who was beheaded yesterday at 9am.
The mum is reported to have staggered from the church and sought refuge in a nearby restaurant where she was helped one of the workers and by the brother of owner Brahim Jelloule.
Her profile on Facebook shows pictures of her two young sons and a daughter, and her banner photo is a picture of Jesus.
Heartbreakingly, her final words are said to have been “tell my children that I love them”.
Jelloule told TV France Info: “She crossed the street, all bloody, and it was my brother and one of our employees who rescued her, put her inside the restaurant, without understanding anything, and she said that there was an armed man inside the church.”
His brother and the worker then went to the church to confront the killer, but found him armed with the blade.
They had no choice but to flee and called the police, who then swooped on the Catholic church – shooting the suspect 14 times.
The restaurant owner said Simone died about an hour and a half after being stabbed despite efforts from paramedics to save her life.
“This is not Islam. I know the Koran by heart, and that’s not what he preaches,” Jelloule said.
Simone was born in Salvador, Brazil, was a trained cook, currently worked giving care to the elderly, and helped organize a festival of Brazilian culture every year in Nice, reports .
Terrorist suspect Aoussaoui was not known to the security services and travelled to Paris from Italy on October 9 after arriving at the Italian island of Lampedusa on September 20.
He is said to have changed his clothes after arriving in Nice by train before staking out at the church at 8.29am before butchering the three church-goers over half an hour.
Mr Loquès a dad-of-two, was the building’s sacristan, and was preparing for the first Mass of the day when he was attacked.
Parishioners paid tribute to him as a man who loved his church, saying “he helped, he served, he gave”, reports .
His body was found inside Notre Dame.
Le Parisien reports that Mr Loques had been a church warden for ten years, and members of the parish said he was “expansive and sympathetic”.
France’s state prosecutor Jean-Francois Ricard said last night that the body of the third victim, a 60-year-old woman, was found strangled and decapitated near the font in the church.
A team of four local police officers stormed the church through a side entrance and shot the terrorist with a taser and firearms as he yelled “Allahu akbar”.
The attacker was taken to hospital with serious wounds as anti-terrorist police launched an investigation into the bloody rampage.
Investigators found two unused knives, a Qu’ran and two mobile phones, in addition to a bag with some personal effects.
Counter terrorism police have also arrested a 47-year-old man in Nice on suspicion of being an accomplice.
Reports claim he was in close contact with the Aoussaoui before the attack and is believed to have given him the second mobile phone.
The suspected killer’s mother, Kmar, wept as she was questioned over her son at the family home in Tunisian city Sfax.
His brother Yacine told the Al Arabiya TV network: “He told me he wanted to spend the night in front of the cathedral.
“He also sent me a photo of the building. He phoned me when he arrived in France.”
He said the family were shocked when learning that he was responsible for the attack after seeing pictures of him shot on the floor of the church.
A neighbour said he knew the assailant when he was a mechanic and held various other odd jobs, and had shown no signs of radicalisation.
Tunisian judicial officials said Brahim had not been classified as an extremist before leaving the country, and was not known to security forces.
Fellow migrants who had travelled to Europe with Aoussaoui claimed he was “constantly on the phone” while held on a coronavirus quarantine ship after first arriving in Italy
Italy’s Il Corriere della Serra newspaper reported he told fellow migrants he was eager to get to France, where he claimed he had relatives.
France yesterday saw a waveof violence as a suspected far-right gunman reportedly doing a Nazi salute was shot dead by police in Avignon.
And elsewhere in France, while a security guard at the French Consulate in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, was stabbed.
President Emmanuel Macron described his country as “under attack” as he addressed the nation amid the day of bloodshed.
He denounced the Nice bloodbath as an “Islamic terror attack” and defiantly said the nation would not “give up on our values”.
The president announced up to 7,000 soldiers will be deployed to the streets across France in the wake of the violence to protect landmarks, schools and places of worships.
France has now raised its alert status to the highest possible level of “terror attack emergency”.
Nice mayor Christian Estrosi said the attacker kept shouting “Allahu Akbar” even after he had been shot and was being loaded into an ambulance.
He said: “Enough is enough. It’s time now for France to exonerate itself from the laws of peace in order to definitively wipe out Islamo-fascism from our territory.”
It comes as anti-France sentiment rages across many Muslim nations amid a furious row over controversial cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed.
And the attacks happened as Muslims celebrated the holy day Mawlid, which marks the birth of Mohammed.
History teacher Samuel Paty, 47, was beheaded by 18-year-old Abdullah Anzorov on October 17 after using the cartoons to teach his students about the importance of free speech.
France has provoked the ire of nations such as Iran and Turkey as it has taken a tough line in defending the controversial cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed.
History teacher Paty was was posthumously given the Legion d’Honneur – France’s highest award – and Macron insisted the country would “not give up our cartoons”.
Prophet Mohammed cartoons have been displayed in France in solidarity with Paty to defend what many in the country see as its values of free speech and secularism.
Macron has said he would redouble efforts to stop conservative Islamic beliefs subverting French values – which has angered many Muslims.
France has launched a crackdown on what it perceives to be radical Islam, announcing it has searched more than 120 homes and closed down a mosque in Pantin.
Paty is being seen as a champion of free speech by many in France after his brutal death – inspiring the defiant phrase “Je Suis Prof”.
The image he showed to students was the same one published by Charlie Hebdo that sparked the attack on the magazine’s offices that killed 12.
His killing came after a knife attack near the former offices of Charlie Hebdo just weeks prior – in which the suspect is believed to have tried to target the magazine.