Nice Attack: Dad protecting pregnant wife [video]

LATEST:  Who were victims?

An 11-year-old boy from Texas. A German teacher and two of her students. A French father protecting his pregnant wife.

The Bastille Day truck attack in Nice killed 84 people of all ages and nationalities, including 10 children and teenagers who were out enjoying a fireworks display on a warm summer evening.
More than 200 people were also injured when the Tunisian-born driver slammed his truck into the crowd of revellers.

As a clearer picture emerged of Thursday's horror on the French Riviera, details of some of the victims have begun to trickle in.

Here's what we know so far:

FRANCE: Timothe Fournier, 27, from Paris died after pushing his seven-month-pregnant wife out of the truck's deadly path, his cousin Anais told AFP. "He was a great guy... a young dreamer but someone who was always there for his wife and his future child," she said.

Among the other confirmed French victims were 28-year-old economics teacher Michael Pellegrini and 60-year-old athletics club president Robert Marchand. Also killed was border police commissioner Emmanuel Grout, 45, who was off duty and had been on the Promenade des Anglais to watch the annual fireworks display, local media said.

GERMANY: A German teacher and two of her students from the capital's Paula-Fuerst School were killed, the Berlin mayor's office said.

UNITED STATES: Two US citizens were confirmed dead, the State Department said. A Texas-based newspaper identified them as Sean Copeland, 51, and his 11-year-old son Brodie who were on a family vacation in Europe. "They are so loved," the family was quoted as saying in a statement.
Brodie played baseball and his father was a coach, the Austin American-Statesman reported.
As online tributes poured in, their baseball team posted a photo on Facebook showing Brodie relaxing in the surf on Nice's pebble beach.
"Rest in peace, Brodie and Sean, you will be remembered by many," the Hill Country Baseball Club said.

SWITZERLAND: The Swiss foreign ministry announced the deaths of a Swiss "woman and a child", but gave no further details. It was not immediately clear if they were related.
Local authorities in the Swiss town of Agno named the woman as 54-year-old customs agent Linda Casanova Siccardi, who was on holiday with her French husband. He survived.

TUNISIA: The mother of a four-year-old boy, Tunisian Olfa Bent Souayah, was killed in the attack and her son is still missing, said Tunisia's foreign ministry.
Two Tunisian men, Bilal Labaoui and mechanic Abdelkader Toukabri, were also killed, it added.

ALGERIA: Two children from Algeria died, the government said. A 70-year-old Algerian woman who was visiting her daughter in Nice was also killed, said the foreign ministry's spokesman.

POLAND: Polish media, quoting local officials, say two sisters aged 19 and 20 lost their lives. There was no immediate official confirmation.

MOROCCO: Fatima Charrihi, 60, a Nice resident and mother of seven, was among the first to be killed by the driver, her son Hamza told local media. He described her as "an extraordinary mum" and a devout Muslim who practised "real Islam, not that of the terrorists".

RUSSIA: One Russian tourist was killed, the foreign ministry said. News site Novosti-24 named her as 20-year-old university student Viktoria Savchenko who was holidaying in Nice with a friend. The friend sustained injuries to her legs but was not in a serious condition, it added.

UKRAINE: Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin said a Ukrainian national was killed and another injured.

ARMENIA: An Armenian citizen was also among the dead, the foreign ministry said.

Friday, July 15

ID found with Nice truck attacker is of French petty criminal, 31, of Tunisian descent; no DNA confirmation, say police.

At least two children died and about 50 were hospitalised on Friday.

France has declared three days of national mourning from Saturday.

The prime minister told reporters that the government wants to extend the state of emergency which has been in force since the November 13 Paris attacks until October.

A gunman smashed a truck into a crowd of revellers celebrating Bastille Day in the French resort of Nice, killing at least 84 people in what President Francois Hollande on Friday declared a "terrorist" attack.

Police shot the driver dead after he barrelled the truck two kilometres through a crowd that had been enjoying a fireworks display for France's national day.

The palm-lined Promenade des Anglais of the French Riviera resort was left strewn with bodies as hundreds fled in terror.

Authorities said they found identity papers belonging to a 31-year-old French-Tunisian citizen in the 19-tonne truck, and that the driver had fired a gun several times before police shot him dead.

The attack was of an "undeniable terrorist nature," a sombre Hollande said in a televised national address, confirming that several children were among the dead.

"France was struck on its national day ... the symbol of freedom," said Hollande.

Interior ministry spokesman Pierre-Henry Brandet said 84 people were killed and scores injured, including 18 in "critical condition".

Video: Moment truck ploughs into crowd in Nice

Bastille Day is a celebration of everything France holds dear - its secular republic and the values of "Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite" (Freedom, Equality, Fraternity).

UAE condemns attack

The UAE on Friday condemned in the strongest possible terms the heinous and terrorist crime that claimed the lives of a large number of innocent civilians in Nice city, France, on Thursday.

In a statement, Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, said, "The UAE strongly condemns this heinous and horrific crime. It also confirms its full solidarity with the friendly Republic of France, and backs all procedures it takes to tackle these circumstances."

He added, "This heinous terrorist crime makes it imperative for all to work decisively and without hesitation to counter the terrorism in all its forms and manifestations."
Sheikh Abdullah offered his sincere condolences and solace to the government, people of France and the families of the victims, wishing a speedy recovery to the injured.

World leaders in solidarity with France

Politicians and public figures from around the world reacted with horror and expressions of solidarity with France after a truck smashed into a crowd in the Cote d'Azur resort city of Nice.

US President Barack Obama: "We stand in solidarity and partnership with France, our oldest ally, as they respond to and recover from this attack. On this Bastille Day, we are reminded of the extraordinary resilience and democratic values that have made France an inspiration to the entire world."

US Presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton: "Every American stands in strong solidarity with the people of France, and we say with one voice: we will not be intimidated. We will never allow terrorists to undermine the egalitarian and democratic values that underpin our very way of life."

German Chancellor Angela Merkel: "Germany stands alongside France in the fight against terrorism. Words can barely express the bond between us and our French friends."

British PM Theresa May: "We are shocked and concerned by the scenes there. Our thoughts are with all those affected by this terrible incident on what was a day of national celebration."

Canadian PM Justin Trudeau: "Canadians are shocked by tonight's attack in Nice. Our sympathy is with the victims, and our solidarity with the French people."

Chinese PM Li Keqiang offered his "condolences" to the victims and said China opposed all forms of terrorism.

Russian President Vladimir Putin: "Russia stands in solidarity with the people of France... we have seen once again that terrorism is completely blind to human morality."

EARLY REPORTS: 'A scene of horror': Death toll in Nice truck attack rises to over 75

An attacker killed more than 75 people and injured scores when he drove a truck at high speed into a crowd watching Bastille Day fireworks in the French Riviera city of Nice late on Thursday, local media quoted officials as saying.

Police shot and killed the driver, who drove the heavy, long-distance truck at speed for well over 100 meters (yards) along the famed Promenade des Anglais seafront, hitting the mass of spectators late in the evening, regional official Sebastien Humbert told France Info radio.

The man had opened fire on the crowd, local government chief Christian Estrosi told BFM TV, and weapons and grenades were found inside the truck after he was killed.

"It's a scene of horror," local member of parliament Eric Ciotti told France Info, saying the truck had sped along the pavement fronting the Mediterranean, before being stopped by police after "mowing down several hundred people".

Local broadcasters quoted officials as saying the preliminary death toll was 73. Other officials put the number of wounded as high as in the hundreds.

Humbert described it as a clear criminal attack, although the driver was not yet identified. Residents of the Mediterranean city close to the Italian border were advised to stay indoors. There was no sign of any other attack.

Almost exactly eight months ago Daesh militants killed 130 people in Paris on Nov. 13, the bloodiest in a number of attacks in France and Belgium in the past two years. On Sunday, France had breathed a sigh of relief as the month-long Euro 2016 soccer tournament ended without a feared attack.

Police denied rumours on social media of a subsequent hostage-taking. Vehicle attacks have been used by isolated members of militant groups in recent years.

At least 30 people so far reported dead after a truck ran into a Bastille Day crowd in Nice https://t.co/Iq0Io1iNG1https://t.co/eWd7Bvyahe

— Reuters Top News (@Reuters) July 14, 2016

People fleeing after dozens were reported dead when a truck ran into a Bastille Day crowd in Nice.

HIDING IN TERROR

One woman told France Info she and others had fled in terror: "The lorry came zig-zagging along the street. We ran into a hotel and hid in the toilets with lots of people."

Another woman told the station she was sheltering in a restaurant on the promenade with some 200 other people, where things had calmed down about two hours after the incident.

Nice-Matin journalist Damien Allemand reported from the scene as events unfolded: "People are running. It's panic. He rode up onto the Prom and piled into the crowd ... There are people covered in blood. There must be many injured."

The paper published a photograph of a damaged, long-distance delivery truck, which it said was riddled with bullets and images of emergency services treating the injured. Social media carried images of those hit lying apparently lifeless in pools of blood, prompting police to ask people to stop such posts.

Regional government chief Estrosi has warned in the past of the risk of attacks in the region, following Daesh bloodshed in Paris and Brussels over the past 18 months.

French President Francois Hollande, who was in the south of France at the time of the attack but raced back to Paris to the national crisis center, had hours earlier said that a state of emergency put in place after the Paris attacks in November would not be extended when it expires on July 26.

"We can't extend the state of emergency indefinitely, it would make no sense. That would mean we're no longer a republic with the rule of law applied in all circumstances," Hollande told journalists in a traditional Bastille Day interview.

His interior minister, Bernard Cazeneuve, was expected in Nice overnight, a source in the ministry said.

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