Survivors of Istanbul’s New Year’s Eve nightclub massacre spoke of their ordeal yesterday, one recalling how he played dead to escape the gunman.
Thirty-nine people were killed when a man armed with an assault rifle attacked the Reina nightclub, shooting at revellers indiscriminately.
“He shot one shot, so we thought — I thought — it was some angry or drunk man,” François al-Asmar, a Lebanese man, said. “But a few seconds later, we heard a machine gun.”
He added: “I was hiding behind the table, sitting on the floor, but my shoulder must have been exposed. He was shooting us on the floor ... I acted dead so he didn’t keep shooting me.”
The Anadolu news agency reported that two thirds of the victims were