Two young Austrians of Turkish origin have been praised for their courage following Monday’s gun attack in the capital of Vienna. Footage of them rescuing the wounded people, including a policeman, has gone viral on social media.
Despite gunshots echoing down the street, the video footage shows the pair running to a metro station exit and helping panicked people escape.
On Tuesday, the interior ministry confirmed, without naming the two friends, that they had helped during the attack late Monday by a radicalised young man from North Macedonia.
The assailant killed four people before being shot dead by police.
A young Palestinian man was also praised as a hero for assisting an injured police officer.
Mikail Ozen and Recep Tayyip Gultekin, both Austrian citizens from Turkish backgrounds, had planned to “drink a last coffee” together at bustling Schwedenplatz before the country’s coronavirus lockdown came into effect, they said in a video posted online immediately after the attack.
The first shots could be heard even as they arrived at the busy square by the river to find “people lying on the ground covered in blood”, Ozen recalled.
They went to help a panicked older woman who was looking for a place to hide only to see a wounded policeman lying on the ground.
“We couldn’t act as if we hadn’t seen him,” Ozen said. “We ran and carried him to the ambulance” by supporting him under his shoulders as the gunfire continued.
Turkish media reported that President Recep Tayyip Erdogan had called the pair to congratulate them.
The two young men were also invited to the Turkish embassy in Vienna where Turkey’s ambassador to Austria Ozan Ceyhun praised their conduct, according to BBC.
