Traumatised Vienna silent after gun rampage

VIENNA (Reuters) – Vienna’s streets lay eerily silent and empty under tight security on Tuesday afternoon, less than 24 hours after four people were killed in a gun rampage by a convicted jihadist in the busy city centre.

On what was also the first day of a second national coronavirus lockdown, only the occasional car or van could be seen travelling along the broad, tree-lined avenues in front of the University of Vienna, City Hall, and Parliament, and very few pedestrians.

The area around the Stadttempel Jewish synagogue, where the attack began, was still cordoned off and guarded by police with their weapons at the ready, while armed officers controlled cars along the motorway leading to and from the airport.

Those forced to venture outside for work spoke of their shock over the violence.

“It’s crazy, everyone is worried. A life is not worth anything anymore,” said taxi driver Huseyin Gueluem while waiting for passengers at Vienna Airport.

Still visibly shaken by the night’s events, Gueluem compared the violence to militant attacks in Turkey. “Terror is terror, it knows no religion or state,” he said.

A newspaper vendor at the airport who wanted to remain anonymous also spoke of the mental toll.

“It’s all a bit much,” he said. “The attack, the new lockdown, I did not sleep at all tonight.”

Only journalists and a handful of curious residents had come to the area around the synagogue.

“Something like this was to be expected, even in Vienna,” said Josef Neubauer, who lives in Vienna. “It’s a big city. Berlin, Paris – it was just a matter of time.”

Some feared what the social impact of the attacks would be.

“These people want to make Islam bigger and bigger but in fact they make it smaller and smaller,” said student Zaccaria Assalmonashev. “And so they destroy it.”