Three Catholics murdered in Islamist terrorist attack at Nice Basilica, France. 21-year old Tunisian suspect shot and detained by French anti-terrorist police.

By Clodagh Gallagher

Shortly after 9am on the 29th October 2020, three Catholics were murdered inside Notre Dame Basilica, Nice. The first victim, Vincent Loques, the basilica’s 55-year-old sacristan and father of two, had his throat slit. Brazilian-born Simone Barreto Silva, a 44-year-old mother of three was stabbed multiple times and died of her wounds in a nearby café, after sounding the alarm. Parishioner Nadine Devillers, a 60-year-old woman, was left almost completely decapitated at the front of the basilica, near the holy water font. Their murderer, 21-year-old Ibrahim Issaoui from Tunisia, an Islamist terrorist. Aid To The Church In Need denounces this outburst of violence - yet another terrorist act in France - and one more on the long list of crimes against Christians throughout the world. Our hearts are with the victims, the injured, their families and the entire French Catholic community.

Issaoui shouted "Allahu Akbar" throughout his murderous rampage – even after his arrest. He was shot by police and remains in custody. The young Tunisian had arrived in Europe to the Italian island of Lampedusa in mid-September and had come to Nice by train early on the morning of the attack. A 47-year-old man has also been taken into custody, on suspicion of having been in contact with the Nice murderer. Issaoui is in critical condition in a French hospital after being wounded by police during his arrest and has not yet been questioned. Five more people between the ages of 25 and 63 are also being detained in connection with the attack. A previously unknown Tunisian Islamist fundamentalist group claimed responsibility for Thursday's attack. Tunisian and French authorities are investigating whether this claim is legitimate as France goes into its highest security alert, in anticipation of more attacks. Frances’ interior minister, Gerald Darmanin has said, “We are in a war against an enemy that is both inside and outside. We need to understand that there have been and there will be other events such as these terrible attacks."

At Aid To The Church In Need, we know that this callous and blatant disregard for human life is endemic within Islamist fundamentalism. We have seen it repeatedly and systematically target Christians in the countries we work in - as symbols of rebellion against Muslim ideology, to be destroyed. We feel that these days Christians in Europe are caught between a radical and visceral attack on two fronts: one which wants to destroy their roots and to create a purely individualistic society without God. And another which has been radicalized and wants to impose a fundamentalist Islamist system by force, sowing terror and violence as we have seen in Nice, abusing the name of religion and God.

As the French Bishops’ have written, these people have been attacked because they were in a Catholic church and therefore “represented a symbol” to be destroyed. This anti-Christian mentality drives Islamist terrorism. These murders by a knife-wielding Muslim shouting “Allahu Akbar” are part of a rapidly rising wave of anti-Christian, anti-Western violence among Islamist fundamentalists within France. French Muslim leaders denounced the Nice attack as having nothing to do with their faith and called for peace. The French government have labelled these murders as an act of Islamist terrorism. They took place amid global tensions around newspaper caricatures published by a French newspaper, after which secondary-school teacher Samuel Paty was beheaded for showing these caricatures as part of his civics class.

After the murder of Paty, French President Emmanuel Macron pledged to fight "Islamist separatism" in a spirited defence of the right to publish religious caricatures under freedom of speech - enraging Islamic extremists worldwide. Islamist extremists in Saudi Arabia, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, Libya, Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Kuwait, Qatar, Iraq, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Iran responded by boycotting French products and burning effigies of the French President. Speaking outside Nice Basilica on the day of the attack, French President Emmanuel Macron said France was under siege of Islamist terrorism and that he would employ thousands of soldiers to protect schools and places of worship for all faiths. He added that France was being attacked “over our values, for our taste for freedom, for the ability on our soil to have freedom of belief. I say it with great clarity again today: we will not give any ground."

Exceptionally, considering the new lockdown that was due to begin the day after the attack, the French government have allowed Masses in remembrance of the victims to go ahead. Priests in the Saint-Sulpice Church in Paris and elsewhere in France mentioned the attack during their All Saints’ Day Masses. Nice Archbishop Andre Marceau celebrated a rite of purification in the Basilica after Thursday's fatal knife attack, paying homage to the victims and marking All Saints’ Day. Riot police or other security forces were stationed at some prominent religious sites.

At Aid To The Church In Need, we know first-hand that Islamist persecution of Christians is real and on the rise. ACN France’s director Benoit de Blanpré, has called for peace: "Today in France, Christians are being murdered. Let us ask Father Jacques Hamel, also slain in his church on 26 July 2016, to intercede so that this barbarism ceases, and that Christians can freely live their faith.”