A week after the deadly Bastille Day attack in Nice, France, reports have surfaced, claiming that almost one third of the people killed in the attack were Muslim.
The Islamic State had claimed responsibility for the terror attack that took place in Nice last Thursday, which killed 84 people and injured several others. According to the Head of a local Islamic organisation in Nice, 34 of the victims were Muslims.
According to Muslims of the Alpes-Maritimes’s spokesperson, Kawthar Ben Salem, funerals were being held for almost 30 of the deceased Muslim victims, New York Times reported. The President of the group, as well as the city’s Imam, Otmane Aissaoui, also confirmed that among the 84 dead, 20 were from Tunisia, just like the Tunisian driver of the truck.
According to the Imam, there are possibilities of anti-Islamic hostility in schools and neighbourhoods in Nice post the attack, and that it is important to remember that Muslims died too in the attack, along with others. He said it was the only way to defend against the isolation of the Muslim community in the face of such atrocities.
The victims include Muslim children and women, along with other citizens from 27 countries, French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault confirmed.
In a moving interview to French newspaper L’Express, the son of 62-year-old Fatima from Morocco, who died in the attack, said:
”She wore the veil but practiced a true Islam, not the terrorist version.”