A driver deliberately rammed a van into a crowd on Barcelona’s most popular street on August 17, 2017 killing at least 13 people before fleeing to a nearby bar, police said.
Officers in Spain’s second-largest city said the ramming on Las Ramblas was a “terrorist attack”. The driver of a van that mowed into a packed street in Barcelona is still on the run, Spanish police said. / AFP PHOTO / JAVIER SORIANO
(Eagle News) – Two Filipinos have been injured in the deadly van attack in Barcelona, according to the country’s Consul General in Spain.
Dr. Emmanuel Fernandez, the Deputy Chief of Mission and Consul General on the Philippines in Spain, did not identify the two Filipinos who were injured but said that they were a Filipino father and his child who just visited Barcelona, with the rest of their family.
Fernandez however stressed that there were no Filipino casualties in the van attack that so far killed 13 and injured more than 100 people.
In a radio interview with DZBB, Fernandez said that the five-year old child had a knee injury, while the father was hit on the side.
“Walang patay. Sugatan lang ng minor injuries yung tatay, at anak na five years old,” he said.
He also confirmed that the police in Barcelona have also arrested two people in Spain, one of them allegedly of Morroccan descent.
Fernandez said Filipinos in Spain are advised to be extra careful and to just stay home if they can following the warning from Spanish police that there could be more terrorist attacks in the area.
“Mag-ingat, at huwag masyadong maglalabas,” he said.
Spanish police warned early Friday that agents had been deployed to a city south of Barcelona to counter a “possible terrorist attack,” just hours after a van mowed into pedestrians killing 13 people in the popular seaside city.
Police in the Spanish region of Catalonia tweeted that a “police operation” was taking place in Cambrils some 120 kilometres south of Barcelona and tweeted asking people to “stay home, stay safe”.
The Philippine Department of Foreign Affairs also condemned the attack that had injured at least two Filipinos.
“Nakikiramay po kami sa naapektuhan. Kinukundena po naming yung nangyaring attack,” said DFA spokesperson, Ambassador Robespierre Bolivar.
He said that the Filipinos who were injured were “Irish citizens, although of Filipino descent.”
There are around 20,000 Filipinos living in Barcelona, according to the DFA.
(with an Agence France Presse report)