Rabat – Victims of the Las Ramblas vehicle-ramming attack in Barcelona, which left 14 dead and more than 100 injured Thursday afternoon, included a number of Moroccan nationals, according to the Spanish Civil Protection authorities. The victims of the attacks were of 34 different nationalities.
The exact number of Moroccan victims has not yet been disclosed, nor whether the victims died or were merely injured. However, according to local media, at least four Moroccan nationals were wounded in the Las Ramblas attack.
The Spanish authorities announced earlier on Friday, August 18 that the identities of the victims would be released only at the close of the identification process and that the families would be the first to be informed.
By Friday morning, 14 people were known to be dead and more than 100 injured. They come from countries including Germany, France, Belgium, Algeria, Kuwait, Egypt, Turkey, Italy, Venezuela, Australia, Ireland, Peru, and China, as well as Morocco.
Les víctimes mortals i ferits atemptats #Cambrils i #Barcelona són (balanç provisional) de 34 nacionalitats diferents pic.twitter.com/IZCYMg1zJQ
— EmergènciesCatalunya (@emergenciescat) August 18, 2017
The first of the dead to be named was an Italian man, Bruno Gulotta, who was on holiday with his partner and two children, according to his colleagues at the online tech publication Tom’s Hardware.
The second victim was a Belgian woman, Elke Vanbockrijck. Patrick Dewael, the mayor of Tongeren, sent his condolences and told Belgian radio that he had presided over her wedding in 2014. Vanbockrijck, 44, was reported to have been in the city on holiday with her husband and two sons, aged 11 and 14.
The youngest victim of the attacks is a three-year-old girl, Spanish media reported. She died shortly after she was taken to hospital. A six-year-old girl of unknown nationality was taken to hospital with a cerebral haemorrhage, an official at Vall d’Hebron university hospital told the New York Times.
