St. Etienne-de-RouvrayISIS killers burst into a church in a quiet suburb in Normandy, France this morning, killing a priest who was celebrating Mass and critically injuring a nun.
The Daily Mail is reporting on the latest act of terrorism to strike France when two ISIS knifemen rushed into a church in Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray, located near Rouen in Normandy, during morning Mass. The killers stormed the altar and slit the throat of the presiding priest, Father Jacques Hamel, 84, nearly beheading him.
A small group of parishioners, along with two nuns, one of whom is said to have been critically injured in the assault, were taken hostage for almost an hour.
A local source told the press that a third nun managed to escape and raised the alarm which brought anti-terror officers rushing to the scene.
The two attackers were said to have shouted “Allahu Akbar” as they exited the building where they were immediately shot and killed by police.
It has since emerged that the church was one of a number of Catholic churches found on a terrorist “hit list” which was found among the possessions of a suspected ISIS extremist last April.
Although the attackers' names have not yet been released, authorities say one of the them was a local resident who was under electronic tag surveillance after being jailed in France for trying to travel to Syria in 2015. The terms of his bail allow him to be unsupervised between the hours of 8:30 a.m. and 12:30 p.m.
ISIS claimed responsibility for the attack in a statement published by its Aamag news agency, saying that the killing was carried out by “two soldiers of the Islamic State” and was committed in response to calls to target countries involved in a U.S.-led coalition which is fighting ISIS.
The Rev. Federico Lombardi, a spokesman for the Vatican, said Pope Francis was horrified at the barbaric killing of a priest,, saying that the attack was particularly awful because the "horrific violence took place in a church, a sacred place."
Archbishop Dominique Lebrun of Rouen, who is currently attending World Youth Day in Krakow, Poland, identified the deceased as Father Hamel who was serving as an auxiliary priest at the church. In a statement, the Archbishop said "The Catholic Church cannot take weapons other than those of prayer and brotherhood among men."
The parish priest, Father Auguste Moanda-Phuati, 50, contacted by cellphone, said he was rushing back from a vacation near Paris to tend to his stricken flock.
French authorities reacted to the cold-blooded attack with horror and condemnation.
French president Francois Holland, who visited the scene of the attack, condemned the “vile terrorist attack” and said his country needs to fight ISIS “by all means.”
Prime Minister Manuel Valls called the attack “barbaric,” adding: “The whole of France and all Catholics are wounded. We will stand together.”
The country of France has experienced several major terror attacks in the past 19 months beginning with the assault on the Charlie Hebdo newspaper in January 2015 which left 17 dead followed by the Paris attacks in which 130 people lost their lives. Just two weeks ago, during Bastille Day celebrations in the French Riviera town of Nice, 84 people were killed by an Islamic extremist in a cargo truck.
Father Hamel will be sorely missed by the community.
A woman who works at a local beauty parlour, Eulalie Garcia, told the BBC that she had known the priest since her childhood.
"My family has lived here for 35 years and we have always known him," she said. "He was someone who was treasured by the community. He was very discreet and didn't like to draw attention to himself."
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