Tributes to Tunisian killed in Quebec mosque attack

Mourners held a ceremony at Tunisia’s main airport on Saturday to receive the body of a Tunisian-born victim of the January 29 attack on a Quebec mosque.

Boubaker Thabti was among six men killed when a far right-wing student stormed into a mosque in Quebec City during evening prayers and unleashed a barrage of bullets from a pistol and a semi-automatic rifle.

The attack also wounded eight people.

Thabti’s body arrived at Tunis-Carthage International Airport in a coffin wrapped in the flags of both Tunisia and Canada.

His widow and their young son attended the ceremony along with Prime Minister Youssef Chahed ahead of Thabti’s burial in the town of his birth, Tataouine, in southeastern Tunisia.

The 44-year-old food company employee had two children, aged 11 and three.

The foreign ministry said two Tunisians were also among the wounded, including one in a “serious condition”.

Two Algerian dual nationals, agricultural science lecturer Khaled Belkacemi, 60, and 41-year-old computer programmer Abdelkrim Hassane, also died in the attack.

Their bodies arrived at Algiers airport early on Saturday.

Also killed in the attack were Guinean-Canadians Mamadou Tanou Barry, 42, and Ibrahima Barry, 39, and Azzeddine Soufiane, of Moroccan origin and 57 years old, who had lived in Quebec for 30 years.