Police officer kills five in Tunisian synagogue attack

People leave the area near the synagogue on the resort island of Djerba. Photo: YASSINE MAHJOUB/AFP via Getty Images

At least five people were killed when a Tunisian policeman opened fire on Africa's oldest synagogue during the annual Jewish pilgrimage.

Two visitors, including a French citizen, and two policemen were killed during riots on the island of Djerba on Tuesday, and a third officer died from his injuries on Wednesday.

The shooter was a member of the National Guard who killed his colleague at the naval base and then opened fire on the El Ghriba synagogue, injuring 10 people and causing panic among hundreds of visitors to the site.

The names of the perpetrators of the dead were not released, but the Tunisian Foreign Ministry said the two visitors killed were a 30-year-old Tunisian and a French citizen aged 42.

Police take up positions during an attack that killed five people. Photo: YASIN MAKHJUB/AFP via Getty Images

«Investigations are ongoing to uncover the motives for this cowardly aggression,» the Interior Ministry said, without calling the shooting a terrorist attack.

This attack was the first in history against foreign tourists. A country in North Africa after the 2015 Sousse beach bombing that killed 38 people, mostly British tourists.

The 2,500-year-old synagogue was previously attacked. In 2002, al-Qaeda blew up a truck bomb near a synagogue, killing 21 people, including 14 German tourists and two French citizens.

Tuesday's shooting echoes a 1985 incident when a local policeman tasked with guarding a synagogue opened fire on a crowd of Jews celebrating Simchat Torah, killing three people.

About 1,300 Jews live on Djerba . islands, but the synagogue attracts thousands of pilgrims from all over North Africa and beyond.

Believers are waiting for news from friends and loved ones Credit: RADIO SHALOM

The Mane pilgrimage between Passover and Shavuot is at the heart of Jewish tradition in Tunisia, and organizers say more than 5,000 Jewish believers have visited this year, most of them from abroad.

Shooting on Tuesday occurred as the tourism industry in Tunisia finally recovered from the downturns of the pandemic era, as well as the consequences of the terrorist attack in Sousse and a few months ago in the Bardo National Museum in Tunisia, which killed 22 people, most of whom were tourists from Europe.< /p>

Tunisia has seen a surge in Islamist militancy since the 2011 Arab Spring toppled longtime despot Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali, but authorities say they have made significant progress in recent years against terrorism.

The attack on Ghrib also comes at a time when Tunisia is in the midst of a severe financial crisis, exacerbated after President Qais Said seized power in July 2021 and rammed the constitution that gave his office wide powers and neutralized Parliament.