Spain attack third terror incident for Aussie tourist also caught up in London, Paris alerts

The third terror attack to mar Julia Monaco’s three-month holiday has left the Australian rattled yet determined not to let the terrorists win.

The Melbourne woman was in a shopping mall with a friend when a van driver ploughed into crowds in a popular Barcelona promenade.

Panic and confusion spread among shoppers as they realised something had happened.

“In a split second it all kind of changed and everyone just started running and panicking and running for their lives and crying and screaming and we were forced back into the store, told to get away from the windows and to get low on the ground,” Ms Monaco told the Nine Network.

The 26-year-old hid with a dozen others behind a knee-high clothing display in the back of a store before being evacuated by police.

It is the third time Ms Monaco has been caught up in a terror attack since she left Australia.

She was in lockdown on a train during the London Bridge incident in June that killed eight people, including two Australians, and was in Paris a few days later when a man attacked a police officer in front of Notre Dame Cathedral.

Ms Monaco still wants to travel the world.

“I feel a bit rattled, it’s not how I really expected today to go,” she told Melbourne radio 3AW.

“But I don’t feel like I want to go home. I feel like I want to stay here and not let them, whoever they might be, win.”

Melbourne man Michael Christou was with friends about 300m from the initial scene at Las Ramblas and was also nearby at the time of the London Bridge attack.

“I think it’s following me but you kind of come over here and you expect it to happen but you don’t let it stop you from doing what you want to do,” he said.

Australian Adam James and his wife, who was pushed over as they ran from the Las Ramblas scene, were in Istanbul last year when a police bus was blown up in a terror attack.

“It’s happened again. It’s a very real thing,” he said.