A man who stayed by Julian Cadman’s mother’s side after she was mowed down in the Barcelona terror attack has revealed how she begged for information about her missing son.
Pharmacist Fouad Bakkali comforted injured Jumarie ‘Jom’ Cadman on the floor of his Las Ramblas pharmacy.
‘I was with the mother, the Australian mother, until the doctor came,’ Mr Bakkali told The Daily Telegraph.
‘I was at her side helping her, telling her, “be calm, don’t worry.”‘
‘She was asking all the time about her little boy. She asked me “where is my son”. She told me he was seven years old.’
Julian is believed to have been wearing a white collared shirt, aviator sunglasses and a printed cap when he was last seen just hours before the shocking terror attack
Family and friends are sharing increasingly desperate pleas for information on the location of Julian Cadman, 7, who is missing in Barcelona following a terror attack which killed 14
Mr Bakkali said he was working behind the counter in the pharmacy when he heard a loud bang, before people started running for cover in his shop.
He said Ms Cadman appeared to be suffering two broken legs and had a large head wound.
He waited with her until paramedics arrived.
Julian Cadman, who was born in Kent in the UK but moved to Sydney three years ago, was pictured smiling hours before he was tragically separated from his mother during the Las Ramblas chaos that left 14 people dead.
Spanish police have refuted reports the little boy had been found in a hospital.
Spanish newspaper El Mundo reported the seven-year-old was found in a hospital, but authorities have denied that claim, the BBC reports.
The youngster became separated from his mother during the attack. She is now in a serious condition in a Barcelona hospital, suffering serious injuries and reportedly in a coma
Julian was in Barcelona with his mother for a wedding.
Mr Turnbull addressed the tragic search for the seven-year-old at a Liberal Conference on Saturday asking all Australians to say a prayer for the ‘little Australian boy’.
‘In this attack we have seen Australians injured and there is a little Australian boy, whose mother was badly injured and is in hospital and he is lost. He is missing in Barcelona,’ Mr Turnbull said.
‘I think we should all in our quiet moments say a prayer for that little boy. All of us as parents know the anguish his father and his whole family is going through as they rush to seek to find him in Barcelona.’
Family and friends said they were ‘beside themselves’ and were reaching out on Facebook.
‘If you know anyone in that area that you can share this with, please do so,’ Julian’s godfather, Colin Baxter, wrote on Facebook.
Julian’s father Andrew is flying from Sydney to Spain to try and find his son
Andrew Cadman’s boss, Scott, told 2GB that the devastaed father had no idea his wife and child were in any danger before arriving at work about 6am on Friday and listening to the news. When he failed to make contact with them, he began to panic.
‘He’s on his way to the airport at the moment, but we found out about an hour later his son was with her and he’s missing, and we haven’t heard anything since,’ he said on Saturday.
‘He’s flying to Spain at the moment not knowing if his son is dead or alive.’
The man continued to say Mr Cadman was ‘absolutely beside himself’, and ‘can’t do much more than sort of put one foot in front of another at the moment’.
Julian’s aunty Norma Canaveral, who he calls ‘granny’, says she is just waiting for news on the whereabouts of the seven-year-old
Julian’s aunt Maricar Querimit Estera shared her concerns via social media, asking followers to ‘Pray for my nephew who still missing in [the] Barcelona attack’.
‘Your family are waiting for you,’ she added in what appeared to be a direct plea to Julian.
The boy, who is a student at St Bernadette’s Primary in Lalor Park, is last believed to have been wearing a white collared shirt, aviator sunglasses and a printed cap.
Norma Canaveral, who is Jom’s aunt – but is called ‘granny’ by Julian – told MailOnline: ‘We are so worried. I am just waiting for news, hoping for good news.’
The 66-year-old, from London, added: ‘I don’t know what to say. His mother is in the hospital, she’s OK, but she became separated from Julian and we don’t know where he is. All we can do is wait.
‘Julian’s a really sweet boy. He loves to dance, he’s a lovely, bubbly boy.’
British Prime Minister Theresa May has also announced the UK will join the search, telling reporters they were ‘urgently looking into’ reports a dual citizen was missing.
Four Australians were injured in the attack, including Mrs Cadman, Sydney bank worker Suria Intan, who works at the Commonwealth Bank in Lidcombe, and two Victorian men who were hit by the attacker’s van.
Ms Intan, who grew up in Indonesia, and had been travelling through Europe with three friends, The Sydney Morning Herald reported.
Suria Intan, a bank worker from Sydney, has been seriously injured in the terror attack
Ms Intan was due home this weekend, but is now lying in a Barcelona hospital bed with serious injuries.
The two Victorian men from Melbourne’s west – both of whom were hit by the attacker’s car – have been discharged after receiving treatment.
The mother of a friend travelling with the two men told 3AW it was not until her son checked into his hotel that he was told his companions were ‘involved in a terrorist attack, they are injured’.
On Friday afternoon, Foreign Minister Julie Bishop said eight Australians in total were caught up in the horror that unfolded on Thursday – the four who were injured, three who have required consular support and the one unaccounted for.
‘We are concerned, but we are working closely with authorities to determine the whereabouts of the one Australian unaccounted for,’ Ms Bishop told reporters in Melbourne on Friday.
Ms Intan had been travelling through Europe with friends and was due home this weekend
An Australian tourist is missing in Barcelona after the terror attack and four were injured
Eight Australians have been affected by the Barcelona terrorist attack – including one who was hit by the van, Foreign Minister Julie Bishop said
Mr Turnbull said Australia stood in ‘absolute resolute solidarity’ with Spain in the battle against Islamist terrorism.
‘This is a global battle against terrorism,’ Mr Turnbull told reporters in Canberra on Friday.
Meanwhile, a young Australian woman spoke of how she cheated death for the third time this year.
Julia Monaco, 26, from Melbourne, was in a shopping mall with a friend when a van plowed into pedestrians in the Las Ramblas district of Barcelona on Thursday.
It was her third brush with terrorism since she began travelling around Europe three months ago but she told 3AW’s Neil Mitchell that she won’t let it stop her from seeing the world.
In June, she was put in a lockdown on the London Underground while out with friends when terrorists plowed into people on London Bridge before going on a knife rampage in nearby Borough Market.
Days later, she was in Notre Dame in Paris when a police officer was stabbed outside the famous cathedral.
Julia Monaco was in a shopping mall with a friend when a van plowed into pedestrians in the Las Ramblas district of Barcelona on Thursday
‘I don’t feel like I want to go home,’ she told Neil Mitchell on Friday morning.
‘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.’
Ms Monaco and her friends Alana Reader and Julia Rocca, also from Melbourne, were in the store on Placa de Catalyuna when they saw people outside running for their lives.
The doors were locked and she spoke of how she watched terrified pedestrians banging on the windows trying to get inside from the street.
‘In a split second it all kind of changed and everyone just started running and panicking and running for their lives and crying and screaming and we were forced back into the store, told to get away from the windows and to get low on the ground,’ she told Nine.
It was her third brush with terrorism since she began travelling around Europe three months ago. Pictured from left, Julia Rocca, Steph Lamb, Julia Monaco and Alana Reader on holiday in Rome
Ms Monaco said those inside huddled at the back of an Urban Outfitters store and were told to lie face-down on the floor and away from the windows.
When they were finally allowed to leave, they had to walk back to their hostel and avoid the numerous streets that had been closed by police.
‘You just have to keep going. I’m sure though tomorrow morning my mum will say ‘come home’, but I don’t think I’ve been scared out of travelling,’ she added.
Melbourne man Michael Christou was about 300m from the initial scene of the Las Ramblas carnage and was also nearby when eight people including two Australians were killed in the London Bridge van attack in June.
‘I think it’s following me but you kind of come over here (to Europe) and you expect it to happen but you don’t let it stop you from doing what you want to do.’
Australian Adam James and his wife, who was pushed over and suffered minor injuries as they ran from the scene, were in Istanbul last year when a police bus was blown up in a terror attack.
‘It’s happened again. It’s a very real thing,’ he said.
People react and stand around in the Las Ramblas area in Barcelona, Spain as police investigate a damaged van, believed to be the one used in the terror attack
Foreign Minister Julie Bishop said 16 people were killed in the attack and at least 100 injured
Las Ramblas, a street of stalls and shops that cuts through the center of Barcelona, is one of the city’s top tourist destinations. People walk down a wide, pedestrian path in the center of the street while cars can travel on either side.
Police immediately cordoned off the city’s broad avenue and ordered stores and nearby Metro and train stations to close.
Other witnesses also described horrific scenes and fearful crowds in the aftermath of the van attack, which has been claimed by the Islamic State.
MFB Commander Graeme O’Sullivan was one of the first responders at Melbourne’s Bourke Street tragedy in January.
He and his wife saw the latest carnage unfold from the rooftop of their Barcelona hotel.
‘We were up on the sixth floor roof terrace, just the pool area, enjoying a few drinks,’ he told Nine.
‘We could clearly hear thuds as the vehicle was running into people, and then a short time after that, obviously, several very loud sickening screams from the people involved down at street level.’
Mr O’Sullivan said the similarity to the Bourke Street Mall event was chilling.
‘Bourke Street wasn’t terrorism and this appears to be, but the result is still the same,’ he told Melbourne radio 3AW.
Forensic policemen arrive in the cordoned off area after a van plowed into the crowd
Spain has been on a security alert one step below the maximum since June 2015 following attacks elsewhere in Europe and Africa
Keith Fleming, and American living in Barcelona, said he was watching television in his building on a side street just off Las Ramblas when he heard a noise and went out to the balcony to investigate.
He says he saw ‘women and children just running and they looked terrified.’
Mr Fleming heard a bang, possibly from someone rolling down a store shutter, as more people raced by.
He said armed police arrived and pushed everyone a full block down the street.
Australian witnesses described the attack as reminiscent of the Bourke Strert Mall rampage in January (above)
The attack in the northeastern Spanish city was the country’s deadliest since 2004, when al-Qaeda-inspired bombers killed 192 people in coordinated attacks on Madrid’s commuter trains.
Spain has been on a security alert one step below the maximum since June 2015 following attacks elsewhere in Europe and Africa.
Cars, trucks and vans have been the weapon of choice in multiple extremist attacks in Europe in the last year.
The most deadly was the driver of a tractor-trailer who targeted Bastille Day revelers in the southern French city of Nice in July 2016, killing 86 people.
In December 2016, 12 people died after a driver used a hijacked trick to drive into a Christmas market in Berlin.
There have been multiple attacks this year in London, where a man in a rented SUV plowed into pedestrians on Westminster Bridge, killing four people before he ran onto the grounds of Parliament and stabbed an unarmed police officer to death in March.
Four other men drove onto the sidewalk of London Bridge, unleashing a rampage with knives that killed eight people in June.
Another man also drove into pedestrians leaving a north London mosque later in June.