Police kill man who set himself on fire outside Tunisian synagogue
The Interior Ministry said the man advanced toward an officer while ablaze, and a second officer opened fire to protect his colleague
A man set himself on fire in front of the Grand Synagogue in the Tunisian capital and was killed by police, the Interior Ministry said. A police officer and a passer-by suffered burns.
The man started the fire after sundown on Friday, around the time the synagogue holds Sabbath prayers.
The Interior Ministry said in a statement that the man advanced toward a law enforcement officer while ablaze, and a second officer opened fire to protect his colleague. The officer was hospitalised with burns, as was a passer-by, the statement said.
The ministry did not release the man’s identity or potential motive for his act, saying only that he had unspecified psychiatric disorders.
Tunisia was historically home to a large Jewish population, now estimated to number about 1,500 people. Jewish sites in Tunisia have been targeted in the past.
A national guardsman killed five people at the 2,600-year-old El-Ghriba synagogue on the island of Djerba after an annual pilgrimage in 2023. Later that year, pro-Palestinian protesters vandalised a historic synagogue and sanctuary in the southern town of El Hamma, and last year a garden was set ablaze outside the synagogue in the coastal city of Sfax.