This British couple told the terrifying moment about how they
were trapped down a de'ad-end hotel corridor and came face to face with the
bloodthirsty Tunisian terror!st, who began lobbing hand grenades at them.
Rebecca Smith, 22, from Coventry, said 'I was peppered with
grenade shrapnel. With one hit, I thought my jaw had come off.
The office administrator and her boyfriend Ross Thompson,
21, ran for their lives as the gunman hunted down his victims.
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Bungling staff at the Imperial Marhaba Hotel sent them down
the hallway, as Seifeddine Rezgui was firing his Kalashnikov at terrified
holidaymakers.
15 Britons were among the 38 who were mercilessly killed in
the massacre yesterday and that number 'may well rise', Tunisia's Foreign
Minister Tobias Ellwood has said.
He added it was 'the most significant terror!st attack on
the British people' since July 7 bombings in 2005, when 52 people were killed
in London. Another 40 were injured - 25 of whom were British.
The first British victim was today named as Carly Lovett,
24, a fashion blogger from Gainsborough in Lincolnshire. She was on holiday
with her fiancee Liam Moore who is known to have survived the attack.
Adrian Evans, an employee of Sandwell Council in the West
Midlands, and his 22-year-old stepson Joel Richards are also reported to have
been killed.
Lorna Carty, a nurse from Ireland, was confirmed as de'ad
yesterday. She had taken her husband on holiday to help him recover from heart
surgery.
The news of their deaths comes as survivors begin to tell of
their miraculous escapes.
Mr Thompson, a fire safety officer, who lived through the
onslaught said: 'We followed the majority of people to the second floor. Staff
were saying "Come this way". But when we got to the end of a corridor
it was a dea'd end. There was no way down but a 30ft drop.
We managed to get into a room and barricaded the door. It
happened that there were two British ex-military guys with us and they were
telling us what to do. It felt like we were in there 45 minutes.
'Then we could hear him coming up the stairs. He started
firing down the corridor. We tried to escape but he caught us.
'There was no way out, we were trapped at the end of the
corridor, and then he started lobbing these home-made bombs at us.
'He was about 20 metres down the corridor, he had us trapped
and he was shooting at people too. People were running around like flies. There
were three people killed. I thought it was game over... I was shot in the toe.'
Miss Smith added: 'We got separated. The corridor just
exploded and it was chaos. I didn't know if Ross was de'ad or alive. I locked
myself in a staff toilet with a British woman and her 16-year-old son.
'She was terrified because her younger son was alone in
their bedroom, and she was texting him to check he was all right.
We stayed in there for nearly an hour, completely terrified
of coming out in case he got us... We heard gunshots but we didn't know if it
was him, or the police... We didn't know who to trust. We heard people outside
but didn't want to risk it.
The couple, who were on the first day of their two-week
Thompson holiday, are now recovering at the Sahloul Hospital in Sousse.
Miss Smith said: 'The president of Tunisia came to the
hospital and said sorry.
We've seen more of the Tunisian government than anyone from
our own. The Foreign Office are trying to help but they have so much to do.'
Tunisia's Foreign Minister described the attack, which
claimed the lives of at least 15 British tourists, as an act of 'evil and
brutality'.
British police have flown to the resort to help identify
victims and consular teams are in hospitals and hotels looking after those
affected, he said.
ISIS has claimed responsibility for the barbaric attack -
and named the gunman as Seifeddine Rezgui, a 23-year-old aviation student who
has never left the country.
Eyewitnesses say the gunman was was seen laughing and joking
among the midday bathers and sun-seekers, looking like any other tourist.
'He was laughing and joking around, like a normal guy,' said
one witness. 'He was choosing who to shoot. Some people, he was saying to them
'you go away'. He was choosing tourists, British, French.'
More than three hours after the massacre, an apparent
accomplice was arrested near the motorway.
Pictures showed him being punched in the face by a furious
woman as he was marched through the town by armed police.
The Tunisian Prime Minister Habib Essid said the 'majority'
of the fatalities were British, adding: 'We are at war against terror!sm which
represents a serious danger to national unity during this delicate period that
the nation is going through.
Meanwhile British Prime Minister David Cameron said that the
UK faces a 'severe terror!st threat
He announced there would be 'heightened security' for the
high-profile events being held across the country such as the Armed Forces Day
parade.
As names of the de'ad are confirmed, He also said the the
country needs to prepare itself for the fact that many of the 38 killed in the
'savage' shooting were British.
As around 40 others recover in hospital - 25 of whom are
British - thousands of worried tourists have begun to board flights back home
to the UK.
The Chief Executive of Tui Group, which owns Thomson and
First Choice travel agents, said 1,000 customers had already been repatriated
and 5,400 are still in Tunisia.
Another British woman who was shot in the leg in the terr0r
attack yesterday believes she would be de'ad if her glasses case had not
diverted the bullet.
Christine Callaghan said the bullet would have hit her in
the stomach but 'ricocheted' off the glasses case in her bag and struck her
thigh instead.
She declared: 'I'm just lucky to be alive. If it hadn't been
for my glasses, I might not have survived.'
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