The world is in mourning after a truck plowed through a crowd in Nice, France, leaving at least 84 dead and more than 50 injured.
NBC News reports that hundreds were gathered to watch Bastille Day fireworks last night when a delivery truck began driving through the crowd at a speed of approximately 25 mph. Police shot and killed the driver, who has been identified as 31-year-old Mohamad Lahouaiej Bouhel. Ammunition and explosive devices were later found in the truck. Officials suspect that the attack is linked to ISIS, though the terror group has not yet claimed responsibility.
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“France is deeply saddened, but it is also very strong,” French President Francois Hollande said this morning at a news conference. “I can assure you we will always be stronger than the fanatics who are trying to attack us.”
Witnesses described the scene as chaotic, adding that Bouhel appeared to have a gun that he was firing through the truck’s windshield.
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“It was like a mass exodus of people running towards us,” New Jersey expat Sam Helwani told ABC News. “I had asked a woman in French, ‘What’s the problem? What’s going on?’ And she said, ‘There’s a man with a gun.’”
The nation has been on high terror alert since November, when 130 were killed when ISIS terrorists opened fire in busy Paris locations, including a concert hall and restaurants. France’s state of emergency was to be lifted later this month, but Hollande said that after yesterday’s attack, it will be extended by another three months. Nice officials say that this is the worst attack in the city’s history.