Thirty-nine people were killed when a gunman jumped from a boat and stormed a tourist beach in Tunisia.

The attack happened yesterday at the popular holiday resort of El Kantaoui, north of Sousse, with the gunman spraying sunbathers with bullets and reportedly laughing and joking as he selected victims.

Thirty-six other people were wounded, the health ministry said, as at least one gunman opened fire in the Imperial Marhaba hotel in the Port El Kantaoui district.

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“Some of the wounded are in a critical condition,” ministry communications chief Chokri Nafti said.

Police surround the hotel following the attack

An armed man “entered through the back of the hotel and opened fire”, said interior ministry spokesman Mohamed Ali Aroui.

“It was a terrorist attack”, Mr Aroui said. “The assailant was killed,” he added.

The gunman behind the attack was a Tunisian student previously unknown to police, another top official said.

“He is Tunisian, originally from the Kairouan region (in central Tunisia). He is a student,” secretary of state for security Rafik Chelly told a local FM radio station.

“This person was not known [to us],” he added.

“He entered by the beach, dressed like someone who was going to swim, and he had a beach umbrella with his gun in it. Then when he came to the beach he used his weapon,” Mr Chelly said.

He said the attack appeared to have been carried out by a single gunman.

A hotel worker at the site said: “One attacker opened fire with a Kalashnikov on tourists and Tunisians on the beach of the hotel.

“It was just one attacker. He was a young guy dressed in shorts like he was a tourist himself.”

The gunman targeted tourists on the beach.

Local radio, however, said police had captured a second gunman, but officials did not immediately confirm the arrest or his role in the attack.

Those killed included British, German and Belgian nationals, the Tunisian health ministry said in a statement.

Five British citizens were confirmed killed in the shooting, foreign secretary Philip Hammond said.

Mr Hammond said that a “high proportion” of the casualties of the attack were expected to be British.

An Irish woman was also among those killed, Irish foreign affairs minister Charles Flanagan said in a statement.

“Our focus is on establishing whether any other citizens have been killed or injured,” he said.

Police were still clearing the area around the hotel, a security source at the scene said.

Most of the 565 guests at the five-star beachfront hotel were from Britain and “central European countries”, the hotel management said.

It is the second major attack in the North African country this year, and took place during the holy Muslim month of Ramadan.

Sousse draws visitors from Europe and neighbouring North African countries.

Witness tells of ‘bullets whizzing’ around

Witnesses described scenes of panic and confusion after the shooting.

Gary Pine, a British holidaymaker, said the shooting happened around midday (local time) when the beach was thronged with tourists.

“We saw what we thought was firecrackers going off, so we thought someone was celebrating. But you could see quite quickly the panic that was starting to ensue from the next resort along from us,” he told Sky News.

“People were exiting the beach pretty quick. We’re all looking up thinking, what do we do, what is it, but only when you could start hearing bullets whizzing around your ear do you realise it was something a lot more serious than firecrackers.”

Irish woman Elizabeth O’Brien, who was staying at a neighbouring hotel with her two sons, said there was panic on the beach when gunfire erupted.

“I honestly thought it was fireworks and then when I saw people running … I thought, my God, it is shooting,” she told Irish radio station RTE.

“The waiters and the security on the beach started to say ‘Run, run, run!'”

British tourist Debbie Horsfall was sunbathing on the beach in Sousse with a friend when the attack took place.

“She saw a guy with a massive gun in his hand just shooting randomly and then fired shots into the air,” Ms Horsfall said.

“She just shouted ‘run! gun!’ and just kept shouting there was a gun and everybody just ran to the hotel. Then we heard he was in the next-door hotel firing, and all you could think was ‘we’re next’.”

UK prime minister David Cameron said he hoped to speak with the Tunisian government to offer sympathy and condolences over the beach hotel shootings.

“This is a threat that faces all of us, these events that have taken place today in Tunisia and in France, but they can happen anywhere – we all face this threat,” he told reporters.

Tunisia, which has been hailed as a model of democratic transition since its 2011 Arab Spring uprising, is one of the most secular countries in the Arab world.

Islamist jihadists have attacked North African tourist sites before, seeing them as legitimate targets because of their open Western lifestyles and tolerance of alcohol.