Silent Britain honors 30 victims of Tunisia beach massacre

LONDON — People around Britain paused in streets and workplaces, in churches and mosques, in railway stations and at the Wimbledon tennis tournament Friday to honor the victims of an Islamic extremist’s rampage at a Tunisian beach resort.

Flags were lowered to half-staff at Buckingham Palace and UK government buildings to remember those killed in Tunisia’s deadliest attack. Thirty of the 38 dead were British tourists, the youngest a 19-year-old university student and the oldest an 80-year-old retired scientist.

Queen Elizabeth II and British Prime Minister David Cameron were among those who observed a minute’s silence at noon Friday, a week after the attack.

Mourners paused also outside the stadium of Walsall Football Club in central England, where supporters have left flowers and team flags in honor of three fans — all members of the same family — who died.

Britain’s prime minister, David Cameron, center, stands in silence during a visit to Chipping Norton Health Centre in his constituency in Witney, England, as Britain remembers the victims of the Tunisia terror attack with a minute’s silence, Friday, July 3, 2015. (Daniel Leal-Olivas/PA via AP)

Crowds held a moment of silence late Thursday in Tunisia’s capital. People from many religions joined as Muslims broke their Ramadan fast.

A ceremony was also planned Friday at the Imperial Marhaba hotel in the Mediterranean resort town of Sousse, where the attack happened.

The gunman was killed by police and the Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the massacre, a blow to Tunisia’s budding democracy and tourism industry.

The first inquest for a British victim of the attacks opened Friday at a London court. A police officer told a coroner that 59-year-old Stephen Mellor of Bodmin in southwest England died from gunshot wounds to the chest and abdomen. Inquests are held in Britain to determine the facts in cases of violent or unexplained death.

The nationwide moment of remembrance came a day after the government raised the possibility of carrying out airstrikes against IS jihadists in Syria.

At Wimbledon, the start of matches was delayed by 45 minutes to allow spectators and tennis players to take part.

The coffin of Ann McQuire is taken from the RAF C-17 at RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire on July 2, 2015. The bodies of nine of the 30 British nationals killed in last week’s Tunisia terrorist attack were returned on the flight. (AFP/Daniel Leal-Olivas)

The bodies of 17 of the British victims have been repatriated on a military transport plane to Royal Air Force base Brize Norton and two further flights were planned for later on Friday and on Saturday.

The grieving son of one of the victims being flown home, Sue Davey, expressed his anguish on Twitter.

“Finally ready to go meet my mom with my family and I cannot sleep thinking about it,” Conor Fulford wrote.

The remains will be released to the families following post-mortem examinations. Inquests into the deaths will be opened and then adjourned to a later date for an investigation into what happened.

Three Irish nationals, two Germans, one Belgian, one Portuguese and one Russian were also among the dead.

Seifedinne Rezgui, the gunman who murdered dozens in Tunisia on June 26, 2015, is shown walking with his weapon on the beach after the massacre in this still from Sky News footage. He was later shot in a side street, Sky reported. (Sky News screenshot)

Tunisia on Thursday said eight people had been arrested in connection with the jihadist massacre in which 23-year-old student Seifeddine Rezgui gunned down foreign tourists after pulling a Kalashnikov assault rifle from a beach umbrella.

The attack also came as Britain prepares to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the July 7, 2005, attacks in which four suicide bombers killed 52 people on London’s transport network.