Hawzah News Agency - A Turkish man who was wounded in Monday’s terrorist attack in the Austrian capital said ,how he barely escaped death at the hands of one of the gunmen. At least four, and according to other accounts, seven, people died and 15 more were wounded in a terror attack in Austria’s capital on Monday evening, authorities have confirmed.
Attacks took place from six sites, said an Austrian spokesman.
Recep Tayyip Gultekin said he was with his friend Mikail Ozer in Vienna’s city center when they heard gunshots.
He said they headed in the direction of the commotion and saw a gunman shooting a civilian passerby.
Gultekin helped the injured woman.
“After I carried the woman to a nearby restaurant, the terrorist pointed his gun at me,” he recalled.
He threw himself to the ground to avoid being shot by the gunman, who was carrying a long-barrel gun, but was wounded, he said.
“We got into my friend’s car and went to the nearest police station to report the incident.”
Gultekin said that later, they saw that a police officer had been wounded from the clash.
Noting that medical teams could not approach the scene due to the conflict, Gultekin said he and his friend carried the officer to an ambulance.
They also helped an elderly woman they encountered at the scene move to a safe location, he said.
“I didn’t want to go to the hospital because the wound on my foot wasn’t that big,” he said, although the medical team with the ambulance offered to take him there.
“I didn’t want to be a burden because I thought there would be many injuries due to the conflict,” he said.
Noting that the buckshot was still embedded in his foot, Gultekin said: “Now that the situation has calmed down a little more, I will go to a hospital and get treatment.”
Two of the seven victims are men and the third a woman, while the injured include a cop, the Vienna Police Department said on Twitter on Tuesday.
“The assault was carried out by at least one suspect who was shot and killed by officers,” it said.
“The assailant was a sympathizer of the IS [Daesh] terror group,” Austria’s Interior Minister Karl Nehammer told a news conference in Vienna.
He said at least one other suspect is still on the run, and urged citizens to stay indoors and keep away from public places.
Several gunmen armed with rifles targeted people in six locations in Vienna’s city center around 8 p.m. local time (1900 GMT), according to the police.
One passerby was shot dead and 15 people were wounded, according to Vienna Mayor Michael Ludwig.
Seven of the wounded are in critical condition, including a police officer.
Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz announced on Twitter that military units were being deployed in Vienna to support police anti-terror operations.