FIVE OF THE eight people killed in a terror attack in New York yesterday were Argentinian school friends.
The group was celebrating a the 30th anniversary of a school graduation, according to officials. The Argentine victims were from the city of Rosario.
Eight people were killed and 11 seriously injured in a Halloween afternoon attack that the mayor called “a particularly cowardly act of terror”.
The driver — identified by officials as an immigrant from Uzbekistan — was in critical condition but expected to survive after a police officer shot him in the abdomen. He had driven his vehicle down a stretch of bike path.
The Argentinian government said it is “deeply shocked by the death of the compatriots and is working to help the relatives and friends of the victims”.
“Argentina reaffirms its strongest condemnation of terrorist acts and violence in all its manifestations and reiterates the need to deepen the fight against this scourge,” it added in the statement.
Eleven others were seriously hurt when the truck driver struck in broad daylight just blocks from the 9/11 Memorial, on the West Side of Lower Manhattan, close to schools as children and their parents geared up to celebrate Halloween.
“The Argentine government expresses its most sincere condolences for the deaths of Argentine nationals Hernan Diego Mendoza, Diego Enrique Angelini, Alejandro Damian Pagnucco, Ariel Erlij and Hernan Ferruchi, in the dramatic terrorist attack this afternoon in New York,” a foreign ministry statement said.
The injured man was named as Martin Ludovico Marro, who was being treated at Presbyterian Hospital in Manhattan with non-life-threatening injuries, it added.
A Belgian woman was also one of those killed, Foreign Minister Didier Reynders said.
“I am deeply saddened to announce a Belgian victim in Manhattan — I express my condolences to the family and friends,” Reynders, who is also deputy prime minister, said on Twitter.
The Belgian victim was on a trip with her mother and sister.
The attacker left a note claiming allegiance to the Islamic State group, US media reports today.
With AP and AFP reporting.
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