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'They Are So Loved': Remembering The Victims Of The Bastille Day Attack

This photo provided by Jess Davis shows the Copeland family (from left) Sean, Maegan, Brodie, Austin and Kim. Davis, a family friend, said Sean and Brodie were killed Thursday when a Tunisian-born man drove a truck through crowds celebrating Bastille Day along Nice's beachfront, killing scores of people.
Courtesy of Jess Davis via AP
This photo provided by Jess Davis shows the Copeland family (from left) Sean, Maegan, Brodie, Austin and Kim. Davis, a family friend, said Sean and Brodie were killed Thursday when a Tunisian-born man drove a truck through crowds celebrating Bastille Day along Nice's beachfront, killing scores of people.

Updated Sunday at 8:45 p.m. ET

Less than 24 hours after a truck sped down more than a mile of a beachside promenade in Nice, France, claiming the lives of at least 84 people and wounding many others, details are beginning to surface about the victims of the attack.

People from more than a half-dozen different countries lost their lives, including at least three people from the U.S. — student Nicolas Leslie, 20, and Sean Copeland, 51, and his 11-year-old son, Brodie.

"We are heartbroken and in shock over the loss of Brodie Copeland, an amazing son and brother who lit up our lives, and Sean Copeland, a wonderful husband and father," says a statement from a family spokesperson. "They are so loved."

In an interview with NPR, Bill Bishop, a family friend whose son played on a baseball team with Brodie, called the Copelands the kind of family that did everything together — and especially athletics. In their community of Lakeway, just outside Austin, Texas, Bishop says they would spend hours on the baseball diamond.

"They were on a three-week European vacation," Bishop says. "Sean and his oldest son, Austin, had run with the bulls, and they'd just been touring Europe. I think they had a week left, they were just on a great family vacation."

A GoFundMe campaign has been set up to support the Copeland family, created by Hill Country Baseball Club coach Jonathan Paiz, according to a spokesman for the crowdfunding site. "Brodie has been playing baseball at Hill Country since Fall of 2014," the campaign page reads. "He made an impact on all of the coaches at HC."

On Sunday, the University of California, Berkeley, announced that student Nicolas Leslie had been killed in the attack, as well. In part, the statement reads:

"Leslie, 20, was one of 85 participants in a local summer entrepreneurship program in Nice. Unaccounted for since the truck attack, in which another 200 were injured — including three Berkeley students — he had been the subject of an extensive search by university staff, local officials and family.

"His death was reported to campus officials by the FBI, which was notified by its French counterparts earlier today."

"This is tragic, devastating news," UC Berkeley Chancellor Nicholas Dirks said in the statement. "All of us in the UC Berkeley family — both here on campus, and around the world — are heartbroken to learn that another promising young student has been lost to senseless violence."

Three University of Calfornia, Berkeley, students were also injured in the attack, according to an earlier statement from the university. All of the students were attending a 15-day program called Entrepreneurship and Innovation in Europe.

Meanwhile, many families continue to search for their loved ones. Some are posting photos of their missing relatives on the Facebook page SOS Nice.

Victims already confirmed killed in the attack were from many nations, according to multiple reports — including Morocco, Armenia, Ukraine, Switzerland and Germany.


Armenia

The Armenian Ministry of Foreign Affairs said an Armenia citizen was killed, Public Radio of Armenia reported. It did not provide further details.

France

We know that a large number of the victims are from France, though French authorities have not yet issued a list of the deceased.

Robert Marchand, 60, is among the dead, according to his local newspaper Le Journal de Saone-et-Loire. He worked for a local company and was the head of an athletic club in the area. Marcigny's mayor, Louis Poncet, confirmed the news to the Journal and said that Marchand "was a man who was very devoted, passionate, who had advanced the athletic club to the highest level." He was married and had a daughter, the Journal reported.

One of the first victims to be killed in the attack, according to the newspaper L'Express, was Fatima Charrihi, a resident in the city. Her nationality is not immediately clear. The Muslim mother of seven "was an extraordinary mother," her son Hamza told L'Express. "She wore the veil, she practiced an Islam of the middle ground. A true Islam. Not that of the terrorists."

She had been with her nieces and nephews at the time of the attack, according to her son.

Germany

At least three Germans are among the victims, authorities from Berlin told The Associated Press. Reinhard Naumann, the mayor of Berlin's Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf district, told the wire service that "two students and a teacher from a high school in the city" were killed, without identifying them.

Morocco

The Consulate of Morocco in Marseille told HuffPost Maghreb that at least two Moroccan citizens, a woman and a child, were killed in the attack.

Russia

Student Viktoria Savchenko had been in Nice on a break from her studies Moscow's Academy of Finance, which confirmed her death in a tweet Friday.

The Moscow Times reports Savchenko was in the city with a friend, fellow student Polina Serebryannikova, who managed to escape with her life — and some injuries. Serebryannikova, who was beside Savchenko at the time of her friend's death, according to The Telegraph, is now hospitalized.

"My friend and I were walking on the promenade. We saw this truck moving in a strange trajectory," Serebryannikova says, in The Telegraph report. "My friend was hit and died."

Switzerland

Switzerland's foreign ministry said that a Swiss woman and a child were killed in the attack, without identifying them, according to The Associated Press.

However, Al-Jazeera reports that the Swiss woman has been identified as customs agent Linda Casanova-Siccardi, 54, by the mayor of the town of Agno. She had been visiting the city with her husband, a French national, according to the publication. Casanova-Siccardi "is described in a trade union newsletter as one of the country's first female customs officials," according to the AP.

Tunisia

The Tunisian Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement that three of its citizens were killed in the attack. They include a woman named Alfa bint al-Soueyeh Khalfalla, who was born in 1985 and had a 4-year-old son named Kamal.

Victim Mohammed bin Abdel Qader al-Toukabri, who was born in 1958, hailed from Tunisia's Beja Governorate and worked as a mechanic in Nice, the ministry said. Bilal al-Labaoui, who was born in 1987, was from Tunisia's Kasserine Governorate.

Ukraine

In a tweet, Ukrainian Minister for Foreign Affairs Pavlo Klimkin confirmed that one Ukrainian national had been killed in the attack, while another was injured. They have not yet provided any further details.

This post will be updated with further information about the victims as we learn more.

Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Colin Dwyer covers breaking news for NPR. He reports on a wide array of subjects — from politics in Latin America and the Middle East, to the latest developments in sports and scientific research.
Merrit Kennedy is a reporter for NPR's News Desk. She covers a broad range of issues, from the latest developments out of the Middle East to science research news.