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AN IRISH FAMILY of four has been caught up in the terror attack in Barcelona that left 13 dead.
Two of the family – parents originally from the Philippines who are naturalised Irish and their Irish-born children – were injured in the attack. A spokesperson for the Filipino Embassy in Madrid confirmed the injuries.
Emmanuel Fernandez, the Consul General of the Philippines Embassy in Madrid, told Spanish radio that two of the family had been injured.
The father, he said, was injured “but okay”. The five-year-old son is more seriously hurt, however, and may need an operation.
He described the mother and daughter’s condition as being “okay”. The Philippines Embassy is providing assistance to the family.
Fernandez said the family had arranged the trip to Barcelona to celebrate the five-year-old’s birthday. They have been named as Norman and Pederlita Putot, and their children Nathaniel and Pearl.
Foreign Affairs Minister Simon Coveney said that the boy had a broken femur and the father also had leg injuries.
Condemnation
Meanwhile, the Taoiseach, the President and Minister for Foreign Affairs have all condemned the terror attack.
At around 4pm yesterday, a white van drove onto the popular Las Ramblas promenade and drove into crowds of pedestrians. 13 people were killed and more than 100 injured.
Overnight, Spanish police shot and killed five attempted attackers in the seaside town of Cambrils. The men had driven into pedestrians, injuring seven people.
Islamic State has claimed responsibility for the Barcelona attack.
Taoiseach Leo Varadkar expressed his abhorrence at the attack in Barcelona.
“On behalf of the Government and the Irish people, I would like to extend my deepest sympathy to Prime Minister Rajoy and the people of Barcelona and Spain following this callous act. An attack of this nature, targeting the people of Barcelona and visitors enjoying that wonderful city in the height of the tourist season, is both wanton and cowardly and has no place in our society.
“At this time of immense grief, I want to offer our solidarity and support to the people of Spain, with whom we have such close relations.”
President Michael D Higgins echoed Varadkar, saying he had asked the Spanish ambassador to convey his “deepest condolences” to the government and people of Spain and to the Mayor of Barcelona.
“Barcelona has a long history of hospitality and has over the years received so many people from around the world. As President of Ireland I want to send the people of this great and welcoming city not only our sympathy but also the solidarity of the people of Ireland.”
Foreign Affairs Minister Simon Coveney said:
“I am appalled by the incident in Barcelona this afternoon.
“On behalf of the Irish government, I wish to convey our condolences and solidarity with the people of Spain at this time.”
Coveney told RTÉ’s Morning Ireland that Irish people should continue to travel to Spain.
“We should not let this change our way of life. But people should be vigilant.
“The reality is that we should be aware of international terrorism in a way that we didn’t have to in the past. But the thought that the great European cities are places we wouldn’t travel is something we can’t countenance.”
Irish citizens in the vicinity of the incident are advised to follow the advice of local authorities. Anyone with concerns for the safety of loved ones in Barcelona or Cambrils can contact the consular assistance team in the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade on 01-4082000 or the Irish Embassy in Madrid on +34 914364093.
The Department of Foreign Affairs has updated its advice on Spain.
Irish citizens are advised to exercise caution and follow all the advice of the local authorities.
Meanwhile Ardmhéara Bhaile Átha Cliath Mícheál Mac Donncha, will open a Book of Condolences in Dublin today. It will be available for the public to sign from 12pm to 4pm today and tomorrow and from 10am to 4pm on Monday.
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Poor family. I hope they get back to full health on no time! Just in the wrong place at the wrong time unfortunately
The response by Spanish police in Cambrils was the correct response. Hopefully the Spanish and global media keep these “people’s” names out of the papers, the world doesn’t need to know who they are or where they came from. They took it upon themselves to hurt or kill innocent people and suffered the consequences of their actions.
@Frank Cooney: why do we want to know anything about these people except that they tried to hurt innocent people and they paid for it by dying. If they remain unknown then the world can focus on the victims. The media concentrates too much on the cowards who commit the atrocities not on the victims. Let them be the faceless garbage that they are. Don’t even bury them incinerate their bodies so that their families can’t mourn them. The world has to stop tip toeing around them after the deed has been done, giving their families and community a platform to speak about them. If the media shows total lack of interest in them it tells them “we don’t care and we will continue to live our lives”
@David Northridge: ” why do we want to know anything about these people” Because we need to know what makes some people do things like this. Is there a commonality among them that sets them aside from the rest of their community? Are their predictors we can spot? Is there an early intervention we can use to prevent this form of radicalization? As for burial, If they did this in the name of ISIS They probably see themselves as Muslim and most Imams will not perform funreal rites for terrorists so thats taken care of.
@Frank Cooney: “people don’t understand why the likes of isis target westerners” The vast majority of ISIS victims are middle eastern Muslims ans are the vast majority of those actually fighting ISIS
Lets not offend anyone regilious beliefs now…they have feeling you know! #Region of peace RIP
@Anto McGovern: The majority of people would agree with you. I would hope that at least 90% of people of any religion care and wish no harm to other people. I am not sure that this is all down to religion? Remember the awful days of the IRA? Not all Irish people were members or killers.
@Gillian Weir Scully: have you looked into what muslims believe worldwide? The support for killing apostates/adulterers is staggering. Take jordan or pakistan. 80% of Jordanians believe you should be killed for leaving the Islamic faith. Upwards of 80% of Pakistanis support stoning adulterers to death.
@Cian:
There was a time in the 70′s when you would have found overwhelming support from most Irish for the IRA
@Anto McGovern: region of peace yeah? you can’t even spell your moronic statement correctly you knuckle-dragger
@DarkHorse: I don’t see how that is relevant to the religious beliefs of muslims today.
@Cian:
I don’t think preaching and encouraging hatred, like you are, does anything to combat hatred.
@ted hagan: How is pointing out the intolerant beliefs of many muslims worldwide preaching/encouraging hatred? These beliefs are the problem not the people who highlight them.
@Cian:
You could point to the tolerant Muslims who integrate with society as an example of those who reject the violence perpetrated by Daesh. These are the very people who can assist in educating the next generation.
You could also point to the fact that people and their beliefs are open to change as exhibited by the Irish people towards the IRA
@DarkHorse: most muslims reject the violence of isis. But that doesn’t mean they don’t hold extremely intolerant beliefs. Yes muslims in the west are by far the most tolerant. But there is still huge problems. Take the uk, 52% of British Muslims want homosexuality to be illegal. 27% had sympathy with the Charlie hebdo killers. 78% wanted the Danish cartoonists imprisoned. I don’t see evidence really that these beliefs in muslim majority countries are likely to change. If anything they are getting more extreme especially with the influence of saudi arabia.
@DarkHorse: I support people like maajid nawaz who are trying to reform islam. But he is despised and vilified by his fellow Muslims which is extremely disheartening.
@Cian: ps. I have no problem with the minorities in muslim majority countries such as gay, ex, the truly secular/progressive muslims moving to the west. I just don’t want your average conservative muslim who are the majority emigrating here.
@Cian: 80% of Jordanians….. ANY EVIDENCE?
@Ian Walsh: sure. http://www.pewforum.org/files/2013/04/worlds-muslims-religion-politics-society-topline1.pdf q. 92b to 92c
@Cian: 92d* q 89 is pretty worrying aswell
@Frank Cooney: and that is the way it will always be. none of those reasons can ever be changed.
@Gillian Weir Scully: agree with you entirely
Animals. Plain and simple.
@thomas patrick: No animal would act like this. Extremists yes which are very dangerous.
@thomas patrick: Animals are not evil, twisted, fanatical, murdering psychopaths.
Leo Varadakars condemnation is an embarasment and a disgrace not nearly strong enough on Muslim perpetrators. Media should forcefully be demanding another unequivocal condemnation as they did President Trump.
@Chris M.: Condemnation against terrorism I think Leo spoke of not against Muslims? Not to sure what President Strumpet has got to do with it as he appears to be a man of 2 halves….both bad. Remember not all Irish were in IRA!
@Gillian Weir Scully: media should demand the Taoiseach condemn the wicked ideology behind this attack. Unless he’s sympathetic toward the ideology as was the suggestion toward President Trump.
@Chris M.: no one is sympathetic to the vile ideology of Jihadist terrorism except the small minority of deviant Muslims who have allowed hatred infect them.
The worry is that some silly individuals of bigoted outlook will try to use these terrorists atrocities to encourage hate against all Muslims, thus creating a massive conflict between the West and Islam.
Only a very tiny minority of Muslims support or are sympathetic to these heinous atrocities, which are carried out by deviant Muslims who are not in any way representative of the general Muslim populations.
@Micheal OLainn: there is already a massive conflict between the West and Islam it’s just the West is primarily on defence and with leaders like Varadakar keen to appear sympathetic to Muslims it’s no wonder we are losing.
@Chris M.: stfu
We all know who is backing these cowardly murderers (either through financing, arming, religious teaching or offering support) but yet nobody goes after them.
I wonder what the reasoning can be?
But our politicians said Irish people have nothing to worry about….obviously these animals didn’t know some of the people they tried to kill were from Ireland. Or will we wait until its Dublin or Cork before we stop importing people we know nothing about and can’t even identify their real names?
@Darren Mccarthy: who are we importing Darren?
@Podge Rick: Muslims.
@Podge Rick: Thats the point….we don’t know. Migrants are brought to this and other European countries without any ID…no time to grab the ID but plenty of time to pack the ipone and charger. Thousands every week are ferried across the Med and all they give is a name and a sob story. No ID and its harder to deport them to their country of origin. We don’t even know that much never mind what they got up to before landing on our shores.
“Sinn Fein views with concern the increasing emergence of openly racist sentiment in Ireland. We support the calls for an immediate amnesty for all asylum seekers in the 26 counties. Sinn Fein will work for the achievement of the optimum position of NO RESTRICTION on immigration in Ireland.”
“Considering this country’s history of emigration Sinn Fein deplores all attempts to limit the numbers of political and economic refugees into the country and supports the full integration of the aforementioned refugees into society”
@James Nellie: This was copied from another news piece in the comment section. Try and be original.
@Gillian Weir Scully:
No. This needs to get out. This is the direction this country seems to be taking and sinn fein are at the forefront.
@James Nellie: Really? Sinn Fein aren’t in government. FG FF Labour have presided over the biggest influx of immigrants in the history of the state. But it must be Sinn Feins fault. Bore off would ya…
@Gillian Weir Scully: i dont care where it came from , I didnt know it had been said , so now I am better informed about the policies of SF.
A symptom of the times we are living in, that there are people in this world who do not want to share our lifestyle or our free way of living. We must do all that we can to protect ourselves and resist the evil of these people.
@Chris Kirk: its not only that Chris , they detest our lifestyle , they do not believe in freedom to enjoy life this will never change as far as they are concerned , so i wish certain people would stop telling us to try to understand these differences so we can live side by side , its not going to happen, ever.
Pity we didn’t listen to Enoch Powell all those years ago.
Click bait headline.
@Nick Drake: Why what’s wrong with the headline? It doesn’t give any incorrect information
@TonyD2469: It’s click bait, read the piece, you will hopefully understand.
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