Tunis: The death toll in the attack on an hotel in the Tunisian coastal city of Sousse has risen to 37 people, including foreigners, an Interior Ministry spokesman says.
The ministry's spokesman Mohammad Al Aroui adds that an attacker has been killed in an exchange of fire with police.
Aroui told national television the shooting in Sousse was a "terrorist attack".
A Health Ministry spokesman says the death toll following the attack against sunbathers at a Tunisian beach resort has increased to 37.
Choukri Nafti said another 36 people were wounded in Friday's attack and two or three of them are in critical condition.
In this screen grab taken from video provided by Tunisia TV1, injured people are treated on a Tunisian beach Friday June 26, 2015. Two gunmen rushed from the beach into a hotel in the Tunisian resort town of Sousse Friday, killing at least 27 people and wounding six others in the latest attack on the North African country's key tourism industry, the Interior Ministry said. (Tunisia TV1 via AP)
Nafti said there was a shortage of psychological help for survivors of the attack at a hotel in the Mediterranean resort of Sousse. It was Tunisia's deadliest such attack.
Most of the 565 guests in the five-star hotel in Tunisia where a gunman killed 37 people on Friday are from Britain and "central European countries", the hotel's managers said.
The body of a tourist shot dead by a gunman lies near a beachside hotel in Sousse, Tunisia June 26, 2015.
"The majority of the guests are from the UK and other central European countries. However, it is not possible at the moment to confirm the nationalities or any other details of the victims," the RIU group, which runs the Riu Imperial Marhaba Hotel, said in a statement.
A British tourist close to the scene of a deadly attack on a Tunisian beach resort has described his experiences.
Gary Pine said he was on the beach and heard what "we thought was firecrackers going off" 100 yards away, followed by an explosion from the next hotel complex along.
Previous attacks
"There was a mass exodus off the beach," he told Sky News. He said his son said he had seen someone get shot on the beach.
He said guests at his hotel were first told to lock themselves in their rooms, and later to gather in the lobby.
Sousse, some 150 kilometers from Tunis, is a popular resort for both Tunisians and Europeans.
Tunisia has been battered by attacks by militants, most recently in March when two Tunisians returning from Libya killed 22 people at the national museum
The body of one gunman lay at the scene with a Kalashnikov assault rifle after he was shot in an exchange of gunfire with police, the source said.
Attacks condemned
Muslim clerics condemned three militant attacks in Tunisia, Kuwait and France on Friday that killed dozens of people including holidaymakers.
Al-Azhar, a leading Sunni Muslim institution based in Egypt, said the "heinous" shooting at a Tunisian coastal resort mostly European tourists was a "violation of all religious and humanitarian norms".
In a statement, it also condemned a suicide bombing at a Kuwaiti Shiite mosque that killed at least 25 worshippers in an attack claimed by the Islamic State group.
Al-Azhar, one of the oldest centres of Sunni Muslim learning, also denounced a suspected Islamist attack in France in which a man was beheaded.
"Al-Azhar calls on the international community to defeat this terrorist group though all available means," it said in a statement referring to IS.
The jihadist group, which controls parts of Syria and Iraq and commands affiliates in several other countries, had called for attacks during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan which began more than a week ago.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, meanwhile, strongly condemned the "appalling" attacks on Friday in France, Kuwait and Tunisia and said those responsible should face justice.
One person was decapitated in southeastern France while in Tunisia gunmen killed at least 37 people at a beach resort, while 25 people died in a suicide bombing claimed by Islamic State jihadists in Kuwait.
Ban condemned "in the strongest terms the terrorist attacks in Tunisia, Kuwait and France today," said a statement from his spokesman.
"Those responsible for these appalling acts of violence must be swiftly brought to justice."
Ban vowed that the "heinous attacks" will not weaken international resolve to fight terror but rather strengthen the commitment to defeat "those bent on murder, destruction and the annihilation of human development and culture."
