********* — *********** regained some normality Monday, with throngs of people walking up and down, tourists arriving and residents going about their daily business. However mourners were still weeping and hugging each other as they visited the main memorial site of the ********* ****** and crowds of people continued to lay flowers, candles and heart-shaped balloons at the top of ***********.
The ***** toll in the country’s two vehicle ******* has been raised to 15. The ******** in the ********* van ****** carjacked a man and stabbed him to ***** Thursday night as he made his getaway, Spanish officials said.
Younes Abouyaaqoub, 22, has been the target of an international manhunt since Thursday’s van ****** in *********. Authorities say they now have evidence he drove the van that plowed down the city’s famed *********** promenade, ******* 13 pedestrians and injuring more than 120 others.
Another vehicle ****** early Friday by other members of his extremist cell ****** one person and ******* several others in the coastal town of Cambrils. That ended in a shootout with ******, who ****** five *********.
The Islamic State group has claimed responsibility for both *******.
Abouyaaqoub is believed to have made his getaway in the stolen car.
Regional authorities said Monday that 50 people are still hospitalized from both *******, nine of them in ******************.
Catalonia’s regional president said regional and local authorities rejected the Spanish government’s suggestion to place traffic barriers to protect the *********** promenade because they deemed them “inefficient.”
Carles Puigdemont told La Sexta television the barriers wouldn’t have prevented vehicles from entering the promenade at other points – and he said closing off *********** was impractical because ********* vehicles still needed access.
Meanwhile in Finland Friday’s stabbings in Turku are under ************* as likely ****** acts, and Europol, the EU’s law enforcement agency, is eying ties to the Spain *******.
The knife ****** in western Finland left two people **** and seven others *******. The ****** was “a likely ****** act,” Finland’s intelligence agency said Saturday.
The suspect, an 18-year-old Moroccan asylum-seeker, was shot and ******* in the thigh by ****** during his rampage Friday in the city of Turku. He was hospitalized under guard, still in intensive care Saturday, and is being investigated for ****** with possible ********* intent, ****** said.
Finnish Prime Minister Juha Sipila told a news conference that if confirmed as an act of *********, “it’s the first time Finland has encountered such a ****** act.”
“Finland is not an island,” he said. “We have feared something like this but we have been prepared,” Sipila said, calling the ****** “a cowardly act.”
With files from The Associated Press
