Briton among four killed in Stockholm terror attack
A British citizen was among four people killed in the Stockholm attack, after an Islamic State-inspired terrorist conducted a deadly rampage with a hijacked lorry.
Police revealed on Sunday morning that the victims of Friday's attack included one Briton, one Belgian and two Swedes.
An 11-year-old schoolgirl is feared to have been among the victims. On Saturday the child's desperate relatives appealed for help in finding her after she failed to return home from school.
“No one knows anything, she is just missing,” said one of the girl’s relatives.
The youngster often enjoyed passing the shops on her way home from school, they said.
“She usually always travels at that time, and that is a natural place for her to be. She knows the area well and it is a normal place for her to be on a daily basis," they added.
On Saturday police took DNA from her home to help identify any remains found.
With four people dead and another four fighting for their lives, Sweden's Royal family joined hundreds of mourners at the site where the beer truck crashed into the crowded shopping street.
The country's Crown Princess Victoria laid roses on the ground yesterday and wiped away a tear.
"We must show a huge force, we must go against this," she said.
One of the injured, 83-year-old grandmother Papusa Ciuraru, has spoken of the kindness of strangers who carried her to a hotel for treatment after she was injured in the path of the truck.
She has undergone surgery in St Göran’s Hospital after her leg was crushed by a concrete bollard.
“When I was laid there I thought that everything was over,” she told Swedish media.
“People around me just screamed, I thought that there was a war going on. I tried to pick myself up and run, but there was a large stone over my leg.
“There was an idiot who drove a lorry down Drottninggatan. He ran over those ugly concrete lions. But thankfully he didn’t get me.
“Two people came up to me, one had a bike, but just left it to one side. They picked me up and carried me to Hötorget and took me into a hotel where I received treatment. I was surprised and they stayed to help me. I thought that everyone would run past me and save themselves."
She was one of 15 people injured and last night 10 still remained in hospital.
Witnesses say the terrorists appeared to target children as it zigzagged along the pedestrianised street as they saw buggies “flying through the air”.
“It swerved from side to side. It didn’t look out of control, it was trying to hit people,” tourist Glen Foran said.
“It hit people, it was terrible. It hit a pram with a kid in it, demolished it.”
Television footage showed hundreds of shoppers and office workers fleeing the scene after the lorry careered down the pedestrian precinct, killing a dog and crushing flowerpots and litter bins as it went.
“We stood inside a shoe store and heard something and then people started to scream. I looked out of the store and saw a big truck,” Jan Granroth told Aftonbladet.
Faisal Khan, whose brother and his family were killed in a terror attack in Kabul three years ago, was on his way to buy a dozen roses to put on his sister-in-law's grave to mark her birthday when the attack happened.
"I heard a loud noise followed by men and women screaming," he said.
“Luckily he was not a good driver. It felt to me like he did not have experience driving such a large vehicle. This guy really wanted to cause a lot of damage.”
Omar Mirza was working in a shop as the truck stuck and said he watched a woman die in a man's arms shortly afterwards in front of him.
Shopper Therese Walther, 30, was in clothes store Zara when she saw the truck hit a girl.
"It was coming as fast as hell," she said. "It ran straight over a girl."
Employees in Zara led her and dozens of others to its cellar for safety and locked the doors.
Staff at department store Åhléns, which the truck crashed in to, were being offered counselling following Friday's attack.
Last night mourners had made a wall of colorful flowers on the aluminum fences surrounding the scene and left teddy bears and messages of love for the victims.
