Five years ago in France, a man drove a truck through crowds celebrating Bastille Day along Nice’s beachfront, killing 86 and wounding more than 100.
Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel, 31, at first fired a semiautomatic weapon into the crowd, then began to run people over as they scrambled to find cover. The attack ended about a mile later, when police shot and killed Bouhlel, the Tunisian native who is believed to have been spurred by jihadist propaganda.
July 14 is Bastille Day, a French national holiday.
At the city’s Lenval hospital, according to RFI, about 300 children are still being monitored by psychiatrists for the trauma suffered that night, with around 100 needing regular consultations.
On Wednesday, Prime Minister Jean Castex will visit the city for a ceremony at the site of the only existing memorial for the victims, a fountain located in a municipal garden set back from the seafront promenade.
Later in the evening, city authorities have organized a concert and at 10:34 p.m. precisely, the time of the start of the rampage, 86 beams of light will illuminate the Mediterranean waterfront to honor the dead.
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