How the horrifying Bondi terror attack unfolded, moment by moment

3 months ago 5

It was golden hour at Bondi – thousands of people were enjoying the beach just before 6.40pm on Sunday, dining at cafes along Campbell Parade, laying on the sand or having a dip at dusk.

Several hundred members of the Jewish community were celebrating the start of Hanukkah in Archer Park next to the northern end of the beach.

The event, Chanukah by the Sea, was filled with families. Marquees set up among the Norfolk Island pines served jam doughnuts, and children gathered around a bubble-blowing station and a small petting zoo with ducks and goats.

When the first couple of shots shattered the peaceful scene, several eyewitnesses said they thought it was the sound of fireworks.

“On the third ‘pop’, we understood shooting,” said one young woman who had her scalp grazed by a bullet. “We heard people saying ‘Get down’. We were protecting our five-year-old son and three-month-old daughter.”

The woman, who asked not to be named, described mayhem erupting across Archer Park as she and her partner sheltered their children from the bullets.

The two gunmen seemed to have made no attempt to camouflage their intent.

Sajid Akram, 50, and his 24-year-old son Naveed Akram, arrived at the beach in their silver hatchback and climbed out carrying rifles and wearing bandoliers of extra ammunition around their waists.

Sajid wore a black shirt, white trousers, carrying a black backpack and a black satchel slung by his side. His rifle appeared to be a pump-action weapon. Naveed wore a black shirt, black pants and carried a bolt-action rifle fitted with a magnifying scope.

They parked their car next to the northern end of a concrete pedestrian footbridge that links Campbell Parade to Archer Park.

The bridge has a clearance of 2.7 metres above the roadway below and provided an elevated platform, with a waist-high concrete parapet, from which the gunmen took aim at the families attending the Hanukkah event.

An eyewitness, Josh Pulford, said he saw the alleged gunmen start firing from the bridge. Pulford was in his van, parked about 15 metres from the bridge.

“They marched towards the event and opened fire,” he said. “One had a shotgun, another had an assault rifle.”

Dozens of people at the event were hit in quick succession.

“I saw children falling to the floor, I saw elderly, I saw invalids, it was just blood gushing everywhere,” said Arsen Ostrovsky, a human rights lawyer who was there with his family.

‘This is a bloodbath’

People screamed and ducked for cover. Ostrovsky, who was bleeding heavily after being struck in the head, said he saw one gunman who appeared to be shooting in all directions from the bridge.

“This is a bloodbath, it was an absolute massacre,” he said.

Vladimir Kotlyar used his body to shield his son from bullets, and a person next to him was hit in the shoulder and slumped across them.

Kotlyar, a chaplain with the State Emergency Service, is a veteran of the USSR army. “And still I have never seen anything like this,” he said.

People sprinted for the safety of the beach and ran en masse to take shelter in the Bondi RSL Club. Footage shows people in cafes along the beachfront scrambling for cover, knocking over chairs to get away from the street.

Others ran towards the scene to try and render help. One man, who only identified himself as B, heard the first shots and saw two children, aged around five or six, hiding under a car.

“They said ‘my mum, my mum,’” he said. The man pulled the children’s mother from under the car. She had been shot in the back of the neck and the shoulder. He applied pressure to her wounds for 20 minutes before paramedics arrived.

“It was like a war zone,” he said.

Bodies of the dead and injured were strewn around the petting zoo. “I saw at least 10 people on the ground and blood everywhere,” said another eyewitness, Harry Wilson.

After the first fusillades of bullets from the bridge, Sajid Akram was seen moving back towards the car, firing shots that apparently struck at least one person on the street.

He was then seen crossing the bridge again, going down the steps and walking closer to the festival site while still firing his pump-action weapon. Footage taken from inside a parked car showed him pulling bullets from his bandolier to reload the weapon.

As he advanced along the edge of Archer Park, firing towards the Hanukkah event, a member of the public, Ahmed el Ahmed, could be seen watching Akram from between two parked cars.

Footage shows el Ahmed seizing his chance as the gunman reloaded, grabbing him from behind and wrestling the weapon away from him. El Ahmed then points the gun at Sajid Akram who backs off and then walks back towards the elevated concrete bridge, where his son Naveed is still firing.

El Ahmed then rested the firearm against a tree.

Naveed can be seen briefly advancing down the steps towards his now-disarmed father. He fired shots towards el Ahmed, who appeared to be struck in the hand and the shoulder. The injured el Ahmed then walked off into Archer Park.

Police now appeared to be firing at the two alleged gunmen with their handguns.

Footage showed Naveed turn back to the bridge, retrieving a third rifle that was laying on the ground and carrying it towards his father, who was returning from Archer Park without a weapon.

Naveed continued to fire aimed shots from the bridge, bobbing up and down from behind the cover of the parapet, as Sajid Akram fumbled with his glasses and loaded the third weapon.

At this point, a person who appeared to be a police officer can be seen in the background near Bondi Pavilion, aiming a weapon at the two alleged gunmen.

Shots are heard and Sajid Akram slumped to the ground, possibly shot by that person behind the bridge.

Naveed Akram swivelled around and fired at the officer, who took cover behind a tree.

He continued to fire several more shots for about 30 seconds after his father was hit, until he too was struck and slumped to the ground.

With Jordan Baker, Christopher Harris, Josefine Ganko and Emily Kaine