
Tunisia attack: RAF prepares to return UK beach victims
1 July 2015
From the section UK
An RAF plane has left the UK for Tunisia to begin the repatriation of British tourists killed by a gunman at a beach resort last week.
Between five and 10 bodies will be flown into RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire on the C17 transport aircraft, a Whitehall source says.
The process is expected to take several days, with a joint inquest to follow.
Thirty of the 38 victims are thought to be British but all seriously injured UK citizens have now been flown home.
The Tunisian authorities have brought in increased security measures and arrested several people on suspicion of helping the gunman Seifeddine Rezgui. The 23-year-old student, who had links to the Islamic State jihadist group, was shot dead by police after the killings on the beach in Sousse on 26 June.
Security sources say he is thought to have been trained in Libya at the same time as two men behind the Bardo museum attack in Tunis that left 22 people dead in March.
People have continued to pay their respects at memorials on the beach at Sousse
A single inquest into all the British deaths will be opened by the West London coroner.
Downing Street has ruled out an inquiry into the attack, but says Scotland Yard would assist the Tunisian investigation.
A spokesman said the government was “working closely” with victims’ families and there is a team from the Foreign Office, the Ministry of Defence and the police, in Tunisia.
Relatives of some of the Britons who lost their lives are thought to have been among the people who left flowers …read more
Source:: BBC UK