Twitter The scene in Las Ramblas neighborhood of Barcelona, Spain.
As many as 13 people were reported dead and dozens injured after two gunman rammed a car into a crowd and then stormed a restaurant called Luna d’Instanbul in an area popular with tourists in Barcelona, Spain’s Las Ramblas neighborhood.
The alleged hostage taking was the latest horrific development. The “gunmen ran into a nearby restaurant to hold diners hostage,” reported UK Daily Mail. According to The Sun, another British news outlet, “Police have reportedly surrounded the Luna d’Istanbul eaterie near the Boqueria food market in a bustling district of the Catalan capital.”
Warning: Some of the videos and photos below are very graphic. According to the Sun, police are treating the incident as a terrorist attack and called it a “massive crash” as the sequence of events started with the van plowing into pedestrians on a sidewalk.
Van ploughs into crowd in #Barcelona and 2 gunman in restaurant #Terror #TerrorAttack #BarcelonaAttack #Spanien #Katalonien
There were reports that the suspects were holed up in the Turkish restaurant as the situation unfolded quickly, with a massive police response to the scene. “Two armed men have entrenched themselves in a bar in Barcelona’s city centre after a van mowed down dozens of people, El Periodico newspaper reported on Wednesday,” according to Yahoo.
Photos of crumpled bodies in the street circulated on Twitter. The Jerusalem Post reported that the car ramming “incident occurred outside the Maccabi kosher restaurant. Maccabi is located across from the city’s medieval Jewish quarter” and that gunmen were holed up in a bar but it wasn’t immediately clear whether those were the same attackers as the people in the van.
‘Two dead’ in Barcelona terror attack after van crashes into pedestrians before ‘two gunmen storm restaurant’
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Videos showed armed police officers hunting for the suspects.
They also showed victims lying injured in the street.
Police released a statement that said “If you are if you are in the area of Plaça Catalunya in Barcelona stay where you are until the police says that you can get (out).”
People posted photos to Twitter from other restaurants near the attack. There were reports of people running in terror as news of the attack spread.
The names and identities of the suspects had not yet been released, although it’s being celebrated on some ISIS-related channels. The terror attack comes after a string of attacks throughout Europe, including in France and England.
Las Ramblas is a promenade that is popular with tourists in the Spanish city.