‘Tell my children I love them’: Last words of Nice terror attack victim Simone Barreto Silva to paramedics who tried to save her

Stabbed to death: Simone Barreto Silva managed to run to a burger bar where she died
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Harrowing details of the last moments of one of the victims of the Nice terror attack emerged today as the French government warned that more atrocities were likely.

Simone Barreto Silva was stabbed several times inside Nice’s Notre Dame basilica as the Tunisian attacker Brahim Aouissaoui went on a rampage, “virtually beheading” another woman and also killing the 55-year-old sacristan Vincent Loquès.

Ms Barreto, 44, a mother of three, managed to run to a nearby burger bar but died there from her injuries, using her last words to ask parademics: “Tell my children that I love them.”

The details of her final moments were revealed as an investigation into the killings — which President Emmanuel Macron called an “Islamist terrorist attack” — continued today with the arrest of a 47-year-old man believed to have been in contact with the attacker.

Migrant Aouissaoui, 21, arrived in Europe by boat on the Italian island of Lampedusa on September 20 before being told to leave Italy. He arrived in Nice by train only hours before yesterday’s attack and remained in a critical condition today after being shot by police. He was heard repeatedly shouting “Allahu Akbar” as he carried out his attack. France raised its national security alert to the highest level yesterday.  

The attack followed the beheading of teacher Samuel Paty near Paris this month after he showed cartoons of the Prophet Muhammed to some of his pupils. Mr Macron has defended the right to publish cartoons mocking Islam as part of his country’s tradition of supporting freedom of expression.

His stance angered Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who has also been the target of a mocking cartoon published by the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, and generated hostility in other Muslim countries.

France’s interior minister, Gerald  Darmanin, today warned that further attacks would follow. “We are in a war against an enemy that is both inside and outside,” he told France’s RTL radio. 

France’s chief anti-terrorist prosecutor Jean-Francois Ricard has said that a Koran, two telephones and a 12-inch knife were found on Aouissaoui after the attack. Investigators found a further two knives that had not been used next to a bag left by the attacker.

The 60-year-old woman, whom prosecutors say was almost beheaded, has not been named. Mr Loquès was a father of two who was opening the church when his throat was cut. Ms Silva was born in Salvador, Brazil, and had lived in France for 30 years.

Aouissaoui’s mother, speaking to Al-Arabiya TV from Tunisia, said she had no idea what he was planning.