France’s national railway company is calling on all passengers to postpone journeys to and from the city of Marseille following the fatal knife attack at the city’s main train station.
The SNCF says the Marseille Saint Charles train station was evacuated after the Sunday’s attack that left two women dead. It was partially reopened in the late afternoon.
French authorities are allowing Marseille train traffic to gradually resume, but the rail company says traffic will remain disrupted all evening.
France’s interior minister says authorities don’t yet know if the Marseille knife attack was of a “terrorist” nature, but reports that some witnesses heard the assailant shouting “Allahu akbar,” Arabic for “God is great.”
Collomb said police have video of the Sunday attack at the city’s main train station. He says it shows a man attacking one woman, running away, then coming back and attacking a second woman.
Both women died of their wounds.
The minister says the assailant then ran toward soldiers who were rushing to the scene. The soldiers shot him just outside the train station.
Marseille police are interviewing about 10 witnesses to the attacks.
Collomb declined to provide any details about the suspect or to identify the victims.
France’s President Emmanuel Macron says he is “deeply outraged” by a “barbarous” knife attack that left two women dead at Marseille’s main train station.
Macron also paid tribute to the French soldiers assigned to domestic security who the president said in a tweet responded with cool heads and efficiency.
The French government this month decided to maintain the military force of 7,000 soldiers that was created to protect sensitive sites after the deadly extremist attacks of 2015
Prime minister Edouard Philippe also praised the soldiers who shot the suspect and stopped the “killing frenzy”
He expressed condolences to the victims’ families and concern for Marseille residents.