INTERNATIONAL NEWS - "There were bodies on the floor with people crowding round them. People were crying,” Xavi Perez, who sells sports magazines just 100 metres away from the attack, told AFP.
The region’s interior minister gave a grim toll from what police said was a terror attack: 13 dead and more than 50 injured.
Among the foreigners on Las Ramblas was Aamar Anwar, a renowned Scottish human rights lawyer who was in Barcelona for a conference and had been walking down the boulevard when the terror unfolded.
“All of a sudden I heard a crashing noise and the whole street just started to run screaming,” he told Sky News, describing a scene of thousands of people struck by chaos and panic.
“I saw a woman next to me screaming for her kids.
The deadly van attack took place on Las Ramblas, Barcelona’s most famous street | © AFP | Iris ROYER DE VERICOURT
“Literally within 30 seconds, police vans, ambulances, police officers with guns were piling out, and we were sectioned off and then being pushed rapidly back,” he said.
Another witness said he saw a man fleeing.
“I saw a man run down the Ramblas, with police chasing him and he appeared to drop a black metal object. It looked like a pistol,” said the witness who only gave his first name, Sergio.
Another man at the scene told Spanish television channel TVE that he saw the suspect.
“It was a person in their 20s, he was very young, brown hair, a slim face. I saw him when the van stopped. We were very close to everything.”
‘Screams and then a crash’
As people ran for their lives they were replaced by armed police officers who sealed off the scene.
“Van upon van of police officers” then arrived, Anwar said. “They have quite clearly unfortunately had to plan for something like this.”
Another visitor, Susan McLean, who was 100 metres away, said it was terrifying.
“All of a sudden, scores of people ran towards us — hysterical, children hysterical. They first of all said someone had been shot.
