27 people have been killed and tsix injured in a terror at tourist hotels in the popular tourist destination of Sousse, Tunisia’s interior ministry has confirmed.
Witnesses report seeing tourists shot and killed while on the beach outside the Imperial Marhaba hotel, which sits alongside three other hotels. It remains unclear which other hotels have been targeted.
[Graphic] Attack at Hotel Riu Imperial in #Sousse reportedly by 1-2 gunmen w. assault rifle. Reports of 7-13 dead: pic.twitter.com/PPZ9Qj38Gm
— Charles Lister (@Charles_Lister) June 26, 2015
A firefight between the gunmen and security personnel continues, and tourists have been warned to stay in their rooms.
Security officials say that at least one gunman has been shot and killed, but it remains unclear how many other gunmen are still on the loose.
Sky News interviewed one British tourist currently in one of hotels at the scene of the attack.
The attack comes three months after Islamic militants killed 22 people, mostly foreign tourists, in a terror attack at a museum in the capital Tunis.
Tunisia is considered one of the success stories of the Arab Spring, after the ousting of dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali in January 2011 and peacefully transitioning to a democracy with parliamentary and presidential elections held in 2014.
However, Tunisia remains one of the largest sources of international fighters joining the Islamic State, and the city of Sousse, the hometown of the former dictator, is one of the most prominent sources of those militants within the country.
