Strasbourg, France – A witness in France has told the BBC that one of the people shot and killed in the city of Strasbourg was a Thai tourist who suffered a head wound and didn’t respond to efforts to revive him.

Peter Fritz said after the gunfire near a Christmas market: “We tried our best to resuscitate him. We applied CPR. We dragged him into a restaurant close by.”

He says the man was in his 30s and his wife appeared to be unharmed but in shock.

Fritz says it took more than 45 minutes for an ambulance to arrive. He said an emergency doctor advised by telephone “that any further efforts would be futile.”

Fritz said of the victim: “He is still here in this restaurant but we have abandoned all hope for him.”

French authorities said the suspected terrorist is on the run after the shooting at the Christmas market.  Shots were reportedly exchanged in a street of the southern district of Neudorf after a manhunt involving police and soldiers but there was no confirmation he had been located.

French media reported that authorities are treating the shooting as a terrorist act after identifying the gunman, named Cherif C, as a radicalised 29-year old from the city on a security and terror watch list.