page_title: 2015 Sousse attacks
section_title: Aftermath
hierarchical_section_title: 2015 Sousse attacks / Aftermath
caption_attribution_description: English: Tributes laid outside Bescot Stadium to three of the victims of the 2015 Sousse terror attack. I took the picture myself.
context_page_description: On 26 June 2015, a mass shooting occurred at the tourist resort at Port El Kantaoui, about 10 kilometres north of the city of Sousse, Tunisia. Thirty-eight people, 30 of whom were British, were killed when a gunman, Seifeddine Rezgui, attacked a hotel. It was the deadliest non-state attack in the history of modern Tunisia, with more fatalities than the 22 killed in the Bardo National Museum attack three months before. The attack received widespread condemnation around the world. The Tunisian government later "acknowledged fault" for slow police response to the attack.
context_section_description: Immediately after the attack, the flight JAF5017, on its way to Enfidha-Hammamet International Airport, was redirected to Brussels. German tour operator TUI offered German tourists the opportunity to fly back to Germany and to cancel or adjust their bookings in Tunisia. British tour operator Thomson announced that flights to Tunisia will be cancelled until at least 9 July 2015, with ten flights departing on the evening of the attacks to bring 2,500 customers in the resort back to the United Kingdom. EasyJet and Thomas Cook announced that customers planning to visit Tunisia would be able to change their travel plans free of charge.
  Hotels were targeted in attacks to undermine tourism and because they were considered "brothels" by ISIS. Both tourism and the related industries accounted for up to 14.9% of the Tunisian economy in 2014.
  The United Kingdom's Home Secretary Theresa May and Foreign Office Minister Tobias Ellwood visited the site of the shooting on 29 June 2015. It was also announced that a Royal Air Force aircraft would be sent in order to repatriate bodies and evacuate the injured back to the UK. On 29 June an RAF Boeing C-17 Globemaster III flew from RAF Brize Norton to Tunisia to recover four British victims, with the C17 returning via Birmingham Airport to unload one patient, and returning to Brize Norton with the other three.
  On 29 June, the House of Commons chamber observed a minute of silence shortly before the Prime Minister David Cameron announced that a national minute of silence would be held on 3 July 2015 at 12:00 local time to remember the victims, exactly one week on from the attacks. Cameron later led several COBRA meetings. The Foreign Office sent a team to the hotel to support British survivors and know more about the British victims. The Metropolitan Police Deputy Assistant Commissioner announced an heightened police presence and security for Armed Forces Day and Pride London events taking place in London over the weekend. On 28 June 2015, Her Majesty The Queen said she and the Duke of Edinburgh were shocked by the attack and also offered their deepest sympathy to the injured. Sixteen British counter-terrorism police were deployed to Tunisia in the direct aftermath of the attacks, and almost 400 officers were sent to British airports to identify potential witnesses to the attack who had returned home.
  On 1 July, the bodies of eight British nationals who were killed in the attacks were flown from Tunisia to RAF Brize Norton. On 2 July, the bodies of a further nine British nationals who were killed in the attacks were flown to RAF Brize Norton and the Prime Minister David Cameron and Defence Secretary Michael Fallon began making calls for airstrikes in Syria, believing the Sousse attacks to have been coordinated from there. On 3 July, the UK held a nationwide minute's silence at 12:00 local time to remember the victims of the attacks as government buildings and Buckingham Palace flew the Union Jack at half-mast. A further eight bodies of British victims were repatriated back to RAF Brize Norton. On 4 July, the final five bodies of the British victims were repatriated back to the United Kingdom.
  An inquest to the attack was initially scheduled to start in November 2016 but was pushed back to 2017. On 16 January 2017, the first hearing of the inquest was held in the Royal Courts of Justice. The inquest found that the police response to the Tunisia Beach Attacks was "at best shambolic and at worst cowardly" after officers in the vicinity were found to be hiding or running in the opposite direction to the attacker. A security team close by to the attack and armed with assault rifles and wearing protective vests, retreated to wait for reinforcements for a half an hour, during which time the lone gunman killed the 38 victims.
  By March 2017, at least six police officers were referred to trial for criminal negligence for failing to help the victims, and 27 others were referred on similar charges, according to the Tunisian Justice Ministry.
  A coroner at the inquest ruled that the victims of the attacks w
caption: Football scarves and shirts were laid as a tribute outside Bescot Stadium, home of Walsall F.C., the team which three of the British victims supported.
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