Warner Bros. PicturesA lads’ holiday didn’t quite end up as expected when a group of British teens got caught up in a Mafia shoot-out at a Bulgarian beach bar.
Ross Warbeck, Joel Ewart, Nathan Smith, Craig Pool and Jack Adams were in the 4you pub in Sunny Beach on Wednesday night when five masked gangsters started shooting, the Mirror reports.
The Mafia shoot-out left one man dead and at last two others seriously injured during the incident which happened just before 9pm local time.
The teens, from Scotland, managed to escape unharmed.
WikipediaRoss, 17 told the Standard:
Nathan noticed five men in ski masks running into the bar and then the shooting started.
It was totally surreal and I still can’t believe it even happened, let alone so close to us as we were right by the shooters, they were just 10 feet away from us.
We all ran out of the bar by jumping over the low wall surrounding the pub and when we looked back we could see that about 10 more unmasked men were outside shooting into the bar and a gunfight happened for about a minute before they all ran off in different directions.
He added the locals were ‘very helpful and concerned for the safety of others,’ saying: “Jack was taken from the bar by a big tattoo artist who shielded him from the gunfire with his body.”
The teens, who were all classmates, were on their first holiday together after leaving school.
Teens on first lads' holiday forced to flee after Mafia gunmen open fire at Bulgaria beach bar https://t.co/CUVYeiWNOC
— Irish Daily Mirror (@IrishMirror) June 10, 2016
As for the shoot-out, Bulgarian news reports stated that notorious drug lord Dimitar Zhelyazkov, known as Mityo The Eyes, was shot five times in the gunfight and remains critically ill. His 21-year-old bodyguard, though, was shot and killed.
According to Chief Commissioner Hristo Terziyski, head of DG National Police, the gunfight was sparked by a financial dispute between two crime gangs. Media reports suggest Zhelyazkov, escorted by a gang of around 30 men, had entered the bar in a bid to extort money.
Sounds like something out of a film – talk about getting more than you bargained for on holiday. We’re glad the teens were unharmed.
