At least 27 people have been killed in a gun attack on a beach in front of hotels in the Tunisian resort of Sousse, The Guardian reports.

Witnesses reported that gunmen opened fire on the beach between the Soviva and Imperial Marhaba hotels. Tunisia’s interior ministry spokesman Mohammed Ali Aroui told the state news agency the victims were mostly tourists but did not give any nationalities.

A security source at the scene said the body of one attacker, armed with a Kalashnikov assault rifle, lay where police had shot him dead. There were reports that one other assailant was on the run.

The attack in Tunisia came on the same day that a man was decapitated and several others injured in an attack with apparent Islamist connections at a factory in France.

Tunisia has been on high alert since March when Islamist militants attacked the Bardo museum in Tunis, killing a group of foreign tourists.