Tunisia hotel attack eyewitnesses - 'Gunfire on beach'

Foreign tourists were relaxing on the beach when gunmen launched a deadly attack at Tunisia's Sousse resort.

These are their eyewitness accounts as the attack began.

Gary Pine - Bullets whizzing around us

No-one knew what seemed to be breaking out. We were shouting to my son to get out of the sea. As he ran out up the beach he said: "I just saw some one get shot."

I made the stupid decision of kind of running back, backtracking 20 yards to pick up my bag. It wasn't the best decision I think I've ever made because you could hear the bullets whizzing around us, going in all kinds of different directions.

A beach at the Sousse resort on a typical day

LISTEN: "Packed beach became a stampede."

Live updates of the Tunisia attacks

Elizabeth O'Brien - Trapped in our room

We were on the beach, my sons were in the sea and I just got out. It was about 12 o'clock and I just looked up about 500 metres from me and I saw a hot air balloon collapse down - then rapid firing. Then I saw two of the people who were going to go up in the balloon start to run towards me. I thought it was fireworks.

Then I thought, oh my God, it sounds like gunfire, so I just ran to the sea to my children and grabbed our things. And as I was running towards the hotel, the waiters and the security started saying, 'run, run, run'.

We've just run to our room, which is like a little bungalow. So we're actually trapped in room. We've no contact.

Steve Johnson - That's guns, let's go

People were screaming and starting to run. Me and my friend we just said, "that's guns, let's go."

We shouted to everybody around us, who joined the sort of mass rush from the beach. We ended up in the spa area of the hotel where we sort of tried to organise people to get themselves concealed away from windows, got the staff to lock all the doors.

We stayed there until we started to see armed police officers and were told it was safe to come out.

Johnny Brown - We just want to go home

I am staying at the El Moradi Palace Hotel with my dad. We were just walking down to the beach when this attack happened.

We heard a couple of the gunshots but didn't see any gunmen. There were a lot of people there and they all went back into the hotel as quick as they could. It was all quite mad.

We are now in our room waiting to hear any further information. We are worried about what will happen next and just want to go home.

Police attempt to escort a suspect near the hotel

Debbie Horsfall - Sunbathing as I heard gunfire

I'm staying at the Belleview Park Hotel, next door from what's happening. I was on the beach with my friend sunbathing when I heard gunfire.

My friend stood up and saw a man with the gun firing. We got up and ran, but we didn't know where to go.

We have only been here two days - we came on Wednesday. We went back to our room but we didn't feel safe. We just want to go home - we packed right away.