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Third time lucky: Woman escapes terror attack at Barcelona after London, Paris
Julia Monaco, a resident of Melbourne, says her experiences have not deterred her from leading a normal life — if anything, they have made her resolve to see the world even stronger.
An Australian woman has had a lucky escape for the third time this year after she escaped the Islamic State’s attack in Barcelona – she was present during the terrorist assaults in Paris and London.
Julia Monaco, a resident of Melbourne, was shopping in Barcelona’s Las Ramblas avenue when a white van ploughed through tourists, leaving at least 13 dead. She called it a terrifying experience.
“Genuinely terrifying experience. One minute I’m shopping for tshirts, the next I’m running to get away from the windows #barcelona,” she tweeted.
On June 3, she was in London when three knifemen went on a stabbing spree and killed eight people.
“ I am in #London and safe, but sirens are a constant and police everywhere. Surreal,” she had tweeted then.
Just days later, she was in Paris when a man attacked a policeman with a hammer at the Notre-Dame cathedral before he was subdued.
But these experiences have not deterred her from leading a normal life — if anything, they have made her resolve to see the world even stronger.
“I don’t feel like I want to go home,” she told 3AW Melbourne, an Australian radio channel. “I feel like I want to stay here and not let them – whoever they may be – win. I’m going to see what I came here to see.”
Islamist militants have staged a string of attacks across Europe in the past 13 months, including several involving vehicles being driven deliberately into crowds to cause maximum casualties. A truck killed 86 people in Nice last July.
