Two Portuguese people were killed and another is feared dead after Friday night’s tragic terrorist attacks in Paris. Ismaël Omar Mostefaï, one of the shooters at the Bataclan concert hall, has also been confirmed as the son of a Portuguese woman.
José Cesário, Secretary of State for Portuguese Communities Abroad, is on his way to France today to make “a first-hand assessment of the situation”.
Speaking to Expresso newspaper last night, he could not confirm whether 50-year-old Christine Gonçalves was the third Portuguese victim of the attacks claimed by the Islamic State extremist group.
What is certain is that Manuel Dias, 63, and Précilia Correia, 35, were killed in shootings outside the Stade de France stadium and inside the Bataclan, respectively.
Dias, a taxi driver born in Mértola but living in Paris for most of his life, was killed while driving three people to the stadium during the match between France and Germany.
Correia, daughter of a Portuguese man and an employee of a FNAC store in Paris, was among the 89 people killed in the Bataclan shooting during a concert by American band Eagles of Death Metal.
Four other Portuguese are reported to have been injured and two Portuguese-French are said to be missing.
Meantime, Ismaël Omar Mostefaï has been confirmed as the son of a Portuguese woman and an Algerian man.
He was identified in a Facebook post by the mayor of Chartres, a town about 60 miles southwest of Paris.
According to the New York Times, he was identified by a finger found at the scene of the shooting.
He grew up in Chartres and was described by a neighbour as part of a “normal family, like any other”. However, the neighbour said he started to develop extremist views around 2010 and is believed to have spent some months in Syria between 2013 and 2014. Says the newspaper, he was identified by authorities in a group of people with “radical Islamic ideologies”.
