A seven-year-old British-Australian boy was among the 13 people killed when a van driven by a suspected Islamist militant mowed down pedestrians in Barcelona on Thursday, emergency services in the northeastern Spanish region said on Sunday.
The boy, named as Julian Cadman by the British government, was separated from his mother who was taken to hospital in a serious condition. Authorities in Australia and Britain had flagged he was missing since Thursday.
“As he was enjoying the sights of Barcelona with his mother, Julian was sadly taken from us,” his family said in a statement distributed by the British Foreign Office. “He was so energetic, funny and cheeky, always bringing a smile to our faces.”
“We are so blessed to have had him in our lives and will remember his smiles and hold his memory dear to our hearts.”
The van ploughed into crowds on Barcelona’s Las Ramblas boulevard on Thursday afternoon, killing 13 people in the tourist hotspot. A Spanish woman was killed hours later when attackers rammed several people in a car and stabbed others in the seaside resort of Cambrils, lower down the coast from Barcelona.
As well as the British-Australian boy, four Spaniards died in the Barcelona van attack, as did two Italians, two Portuguese, one Belgian, one U.S. citizen and a Canadian, emergency services and authorities from those countries have confirmed so far.
A three-year-old boy was among the Spaniards killed in the van rampage, Spanish media reported.