Tunisia president to address nation

Security remains heightened around the museum while the army has been deployed to large cities

The president of Tunisia, Beji Caid Essebsi, is to address the nation, two days after an attack on the Bardo museum in the capital Tunis killed 23 people, mostly foreign tourists.

The address comes on the day that marks 59 years of Tunisia's independence from France and following Wednesday's attack security has been heightened across the country.

Islamic State has said it was behind the attack.

Nine people have been arrested since.

The presidency said four of those arrested were directly linked to the attack and five had "ties to the cell".
Demonstrations have taken place outside the museum for a second day

More demonstrations have taken place outside the museum in solidarity with the victims, following a first vigil on Thursday.

Some Tunisian tourist guides shouted slogans and waved banners saying "We are Bardo" in French.
Tourists from cruise ship groups caught up in the terror attack have arrived in Spanish ports

Meanwhile, two cruise ships that had carried passengers killed or injured in the attack have arrived in Spanish ports.


The BBC's Fergal Keane: "47 people are still being treated in hospital"

Twenty of the people killed at the Bardo museum were foreign tourists.

Belgian tourist Karin Dons said she was not at the museum at the time of the attack but heard the shootings. She said she did not realise what had happened until she returned to the ship and saw the reports on television.

"Then you realise [what] you escaped from but other people were not lucky,'' she said after leaving the ship in Barcelona.

At Tunis' Charles Nicolle hospital, victims' families are arriving continued to arrive to help identify the dead and recover their bodies.

Sally Adey was among the victims
Twenty of the dead were foreigners
Seventeen were cruise ship tourists
The authorities say the victims include four Italians, three Japanese and three French nationals, two Spanish, two Colombians and one each from Britain, Poland and Belgium
The nationalities of three victims remain unconfirmed
The British woman was a 57-year-old mother from Shropshire
Italian media say one of the Italian victims was Francesco Caldara, on his first cruise, accompanying his girlfriend on a birthday trip
French media have named two of the French nationals as Jean-Claude Tissier, 72, and Christophe Tinois, 59

Islamic State has said it was behind the attack on the Bardo museum, in an audio message in which it praised two "knights of the caliphate".

A worker from the parliament building next to the attacked museum tells BBC News of the horror Tunis had witnessed

Tunisian security official Rafik Chelli said the gunmen - identified as Yassine Laabidi and Hatem Khachnaoui - had slipped out of Tunisia in December and received weapons training in Libya ahead of the attack.

He told the el-Hiwar el-Tounsi TV channel that authorities did not have details about where or with which group they had trained.

The men were killed as security forces stormed the museum.

French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve is travelling to Tunis on a pre-scheduled visit coinciding with the country's Independence Day holiday.