Hundreds fled from the beach to Bondi's main street following fatal shootings.
Hundreds fled from the beach to Bondi's main street following fatal shootings.
A cafe owner on the main street in Bondi said hundreds of people ran towards his cafe to “take shelter wherever they could” as they ran for their lives.
About 50 people took shelter in the tattoo shop next door, he said.
“In a few seconds the place justfilled up. People were crying, running into shops. One lady went into the cool room and wouldn’t come out for an hour and a half.
He said the situation and aftermath felt like something out of a movie.
“People were looking for safety. When we heard the first bang it was like fireworks but then the crack crack crack of bullets came” he told the Herald.
“Parents were grabbing their kids crying and just running towards safety.”
The cafe owner - who asked not to be named - told the Herald he was initially stunned, then realised the seriousness of the situation as people ran over the roundabout to his cafe.
Ex-pat Kiwi Alan Cunningham across the road from where people were running for their lives from two gunmen in Bondi last night.
Sixteen people - including a 10-year-old girl - were killed after two gunmen, Naveed Akram (24) and his father (50) opened fire at a Jewish holiday celebration at Sydney’s Bondi Beach.
The older gunman was killed, while his son was critically injured and taken into custody.
Longtime resident Alan Cunningham - a former Auckland advertising executive who has owned Bondi’s most iconic music bar on Campbell’s Parade, for 12 years - described a changed vibe in the suburb this morning.
The ex-pat Kiwi has owned and managed bars in the seaside Sydney suburb for almost two decades, and is one of more than 86,000 New Zealanders who call Sydney home.
Cunningham said Bondi feels eerie today following the shooting that has shocked Australia and the world.
He walked down the main street this morning, and to locations where the shootings occurred, and said it was empty - and people were still walking the streets crying this morning.
“This place would normally be pumping by now,” Cunningham told the Herald.
This cafe on Main Road Bondi would normally be full of early morning walkers, Kiwi expat Alan Cunningham told the Herald.
“There would be thousands of people on the beach out and about and sitting at the cafes. It’s like a ghost town as everyone wakes up to the tragic situation that occurred here in our suburb last night.
“It’s very morbid and quiet.”
Hundreds of people ran for safety towards the cafe on Main Street Bondi.
“I actually had no idea where I was running to, like, I was pure panic.”
As Salmond ran, she saw two police officers heading towards the shooting, she said.
“I remember just feeling terrified for them. Like here we were, running for our lives, scared, and they were having to make their way towards the danger,” she said.
Tiffany Salmond told Herald NOW about hearing the gunshots at Bondi Beach and fleeing the scene.
Authorities said far more people would have been killed were it not for a bystander, identified by local media as fruit shop owner Ahmed al-Ahmed (43) who was filmed charging a gunman from behind, grappling with him and wresting a rifle from his hands.
