London - When three men armed with a van
and knives went on the attack in a bustling area of the British
capital on Saturday night, Londoners fought back with whatever
came to hand, in some cases hurling chairs and tables to ward
them off.
The attack, which saw the assailants kill at least seven
people and injure almost 50 before they were shot dead by
police, began with a van being driven at high speed into a crowd
of pedestrians on London Bridge.
"It looked like he was aiming for groups of people," Mark
Roberts, a 53-year-old management consultant, told Reuters. He
saw at least six people on the ground after the van veered on
and off the pavement.
"It was horrendous."
Then the knife-wielding assailants took their attack to the
nearby Borough Market, where survivors described a hellish scene
in an area packed with people enjoying a night out in bars and
restaurants.
Gerard Vowles told Sky TV that he was on the street near the
Southwark Tavern pub, the scene of multiple stabbings, when he
heard someone say: "I've been stabbed, I've been stabbed."
"I thought they were joking," he said.
He said he then saw a woman and man being stabbed while the
attackers shouted: "This is for Allah", and recalled how he
tried to distract the men.
"As they left I was going "Oi, oi, cowards!" Vowles said. "I
was just trying to get their attention by throwing things at
them ... I thought if I throw bottles or chairs they can come
after me. If I can get them to come to the main road then the
police can stop them, they can obviously shoot them."
Other witnesses reported seeing a man with a large blade,
similar to a kitchen knife, and victims bleeding from stab
wounds. They said people were fleeing the area in panic.
One witness, who only gave the BBC his first name of Ben,
said he saw a man dressed in red who was stabbing a man with a
blade that appeared to be about 10 inches long.
"He was being stabbed quite coldly and he slumped to the
ground," he said of the victim. The attacker then walked towards
Southwark Tavern where a chair was thrown towards him, shortly
before gunshots rang out.