Real Madrid mourn fans killed by ISIS

Real Madrid mourn fans killed by ISIS

Saturday, May 14, 2016 7:19 am


Real Madrid players: to wear black arm bands in memory of the dead

Real Madrid players: to wear black arm bands in memory of the dead

Real Madrid players  will today wear black armbands to mourn 16 of their fans  killed by ISIS gunmen and suicide bombers in an attack on a café in Iraq.

The club said it will do so  “as a sign of their mourning and respect.”

Madrid will be playing their final  La Liga match at Deportivo La Coruna at 4pm.

“The club expresses its great sadness and offers its regards and condolences to the families and friends of the victims,” Real Madrid said in a statement Friday.

“Real Madrid extends all of its solidarity to the people of Iraq, who suffer the excessive injustices of extreme violence,” the club said.

The shooting of the football fans by ISIS gunmen shocked the world  on Friday, just as their bombings of Baghdad.

Blood stains at Balad cafe where the shooting occurred

Blood stains at Balad cafe where the shooting occurred

A witness told NBC News Friday what happened:

“We were around 50 fans of Real Madrid, gathered in a cafe in Balad in order to discuss our arrangement for tomorrow’s(Saturday) team football match,”  Ahmed Tha’er said.

“Suddenly, six armed men stormed into the cafe and started to shoot randomly on the young men. I laid down on the ground.”

The attack on the café in Balad, a city about 50 miles north of Baghdad, occurred early Friday morning. The gunmen included two suicide bombers who detonated explosive vests after police arrived, Iraqi officials told The Associated Press.

Fourteen people were killed outright, and two more died of their wounds later, Tha’er said. Officials told the AP earlier Friday that 13 were killed, but the football club said 16 supporters were killed.

The terror group ISIS claimed responsibility for the attack hours after the attack, according to the AP.

“We met at midnight, but if those terrorists arrived one hour before that they would kill more young men, because many fans left the cafe,” Tha’er said.

It is not the first time ISIS has targeted soccer fans. In March, a suicide bomber attacked a soccer stadium in Iskandriyah, southern Baghdad, killing at least 26 people and wounding 71.

The attack on the café came on the heels of a two-day wave of bombings in Baghdad that killed nearly 100 people — attacks that have also been claimed by the Islamic State group. The deadliest struck the sprawling Shiite neighborhood of Sadr City in northeast Baghdad on Wednesday, killing 63 people.

Reported by www.nbcnews.com

 


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