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London Attack Leaves Citizens of 10 Nations Dead or Injured | |
(35 minutes later) | |
One was a father, a husband and a police constable with 15 years in the Metropolitan Police force. Another was a British teacher of Spanish who, according to reports, was walking from her school when she was mowed down by a sport utility vehicle on Westminster Bridge in the heart of London. | |
They were among three people killed and more than 40 wounded on Wednesday by an assailant who plowed through pedestrians on the bridge, drove on and crashed his vehicle into a fence, and then emerged with knives. | |
The assailant was fatally shot by the police, but the attack threw the seat of Britain’s government into turmoil and put ministers under lockdown for hours. | |
By Thursday morning, officials had not released the name of the assailant. But Prime Minister Theresa May said in Parliament that the assailant was a British-born man who was previously investigated by MI5, Britain’s domestic counterintelligence agency, for possible ties to violent extremism. | |
Among the 40 wounded were 12 Britons, at least four South Koreans, three French high school students, two Romanians, two Greeks and one citizen each of China, Germany, Ireland, Italy and the United States. | |
At a news conference Thursday morning, Mark Rowley, the assistant police commissioner, cited both the police investigation and the need to notify family members as reasons many victims had not been publicly identified. | |
But information about some of those wounded started to dribble out, many of them foreign tourists. Here’s what we know: | |
■ Police Constable Keith Palmer, 48, a member of the Parliamentary and Diplomatic Protection Command, was patrolling the Parliament building when the assailant emerged from his car with a knife and fatally stabbed the officer. Tributes for Constable Palmer have poured in. | |
“He was someone who left for work today expecting to return home at the end of his shift, and he had every right to expect that would happen,” Commissioner Rowley said in a statement. | “He was someone who left for work today expecting to return home at the end of his shift, and he had every right to expect that would happen,” Commissioner Rowley said in a statement. |
Mayor Sadiq Khan said, “Keith Palmer was killed while bravely doing his duty — protecting our city and the heart of our democracy from those who want to destroy our way of life.” | Mayor Sadiq Khan said, “Keith Palmer was killed while bravely doing his duty — protecting our city and the heart of our democracy from those who want to destroy our way of life.” |
James Cleverly, a lawmaker, said on Twitter that he had served in the Royal Artillery with Constable Palmer, calling him “a lovely man, a friend.” | |
■ Aysha Frade, 43, a British teacher, had family in Spain, according to the Spanish Foreign Ministry. Ms. Frade, who lived in London with her husband and two daughters, taught Spanish not far from Westminster Bridge, according to the Spanish newspaper La Voz de Galicia. | |
Ms. Frade’s mother immigrated to Britain from Betanzos, a Galician town in northwestern Spain. Ms. Frade’s two sisters run the Academia Notting Hill language school in Betanzos and live in a village nearby. | |
On Thursday, the Betanzos town hall held a moment of silence at noon to honor Ms. Frade. Local leaders decreed three days of mourning. | |
Ms. Frade, 43, was a British citizen, but “her link with our town was always very strong,” José Luis Pariente, a Betanzos town hall official, said in a telephone interview. “She came back here to visit every summer.” | Ms. Frade, 43, was a British citizen, but “her link with our town was always very strong,” José Luis Pariente, a Betanzos town hall official, said in a telephone interview. “She came back here to visit every summer.” |
Amy Winter, a family friend and a neighbor in Notting Hill, said by telephone: “When I think of Aysha, I think of her radiant smile. She always cheered people up.” | |
“It crushes me to know that she was going to pick up her girls when she was killed,” she said. “They were everything to her.” | |
Rachel Borland, the principal of DLD College London, said in a statement on Thursday: “We are all deeply shocked and saddened at the news that one of the victims yesterday was a member of our staff, Aysha Frade. All our thoughts and our deepest sympathies are with her family. We will be offering every support we can to them as they try to come to terms with their devastating loss.” | |
■ The third person who died in the attack was not immediately identified, but he was described as a man in his mid-50s. | ■ The third person who died in the attack was not immediately identified, but he was described as a man in his mid-50s. |
■ Three of the wounded were 10th-grade boys from France who were on the bridge with a other visiting students. The three attended St.-Joseph high school in Concarneau, Brittany, according to the French Foreign Ministry. | |
The mother of one of the injured students told the French news media that he had borrowed a friend’s cellphone to text that he was O.K. | |
“His phone didn’t work, but he must have known I would try to reach him because I immediately got a text message from him,” the mother, Isabelle Calvez, said on French television. “ He told me he was O.K., but had the incident happened 20 seconds later, he would’ve been hit by the car.” | |
She added that two of the other students had fractured arms and legs, while another had a neck injury. | |
On Thursday, the French Education Ministry said that the injured students from Brittany had been treated and that their conditions were no longer life-threatening. | |
Juliette Meadel, the government minister for victims’ affairs, told CNEWS that the three students were among a group of 56 that went to a nearby hostel after the attack. A second group from the high school, with 36 students, was in another location in London when the attack occurred. Ms. Meadel said the uninjured students would return to France on Thursday. | |
There are more than 4,200 students in London on school trips from France, according to the Education Ministry. Most of the other planned school trips to London on Thursday or Friday have been postponed. | |
Prime Minister Bernard Cazeneuve of France expressed solidarity with “our British friends” hurt in the attack and offered “full support to the injured French pupils, their families and their classmates.” | Prime Minister Bernard Cazeneuve of France expressed solidarity with “our British friends” hurt in the attack and offered “full support to the injured French pupils, their families and their classmates.” |
■ Five South Koreans were among the 29 people hospitalized. They were wounded when they were mobbed by a crowd fleeing the attack site, according to the South Korean Foreign Ministry. | |
Four of them — three women and a man in their 50s and 60s — sustained fractures and other injuries that were not believed to be life-threatening. A 67-year-old woman, however, suffered a head injury when she was pushed by the fleeing crowd, according to South Korean news reports. She later had surgery to treat her injuries. | |
■ The two Romanian victims, Andrei Burnaz, 32, and Andreea Cristea, 31, are from the Black Sea port city of Constanta, according to the Romanian news agency Mediafax, which quoted an official as saying they were in London to celebrate Mr. Burnaz’s birthday. | |
■ At least three of those injured after being “driven at by a vehicle” were members of the police force, and were in stable condition. | ■ At least three of those injured after being “driven at by a vehicle” were members of the police force, and were in stable condition. |
■ A woman who was “an Australian permanent resident” was among the wounded, according to the Australian government. News outlets there reported that the assailant’s vehicle had run over her foot on the bridge. The woman, originally from Germany, lives in South Australia, according to an Australian news report. | |
■ Two Greeks were hospitalized for minor injuries, according to Alexis Georgiades, the press counselor at the Greek Embassy in London. |