Three University of California, Berkeley students studying abroad were injured in the Nice, France, terrorist attack on Thursday, while a fourth student remains missing and unaccounted for, school officials confirmed Friday.
The missing student was identified as Nicolas Leslie, 20, a junior from Del Mar, Calif. University officials are working with local police, the U.S. consular office and his family to locate him, the university said.
Three other students also studying abroad in Nice were injured in the terrorist attack. Two sustained broken legs and were being treated at an area hospital. The third student suffered a broken foot. UC Berkeley is not releasing the names of the students who have been injured.
Two of the three injured have been released from the hospital and are back in their dorms in Nice, UC Berkeley spokesman Robert Sanders said Friday afternoon.
The students were attending a 15-day Entrepreneurship and Innovation program in Europe. The program was part of the international European Innovation Academy, according to a UC Berkeley media statement.
Four of the 85 students attending the program through UC Berkeley have decided to return home immediately, Sanders said. The injured students have decided staying in Nice. The program is supposed to run through July 24.
About 10:30 p.m., a rented refrigerated truck moving at 25 to 30 mph crashed into a crowd celebrating Bastille Day in Promenade des Anglais, near Nice's Palais de la Mediterranee. At least 84 people were killed and 202 people have been injured, 52 of them critically.
The truck driver was gunned down by French authorities. He was identified as Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel, born in the Tunisian capital of Tunis on Jan. 3, 1975.
Leslie, who is 20 and a junior majoring in the College of Natural Resources, is one of 85 students attending the study abroad program.
"We have 85 over there. We found 84," said university spokeswoman Claire Holmes. "We're devastated... we're hoping that Nick is coming home." While there are 85 students participating in the program through UC Berkeley, some of them are enrolled at other college campuses, including the University of California, Merced, the University of California, Davis, James Madison University and the local Peralta Community College District, Sanders said.
The program director, Ken Singer, has visited the three injured students in the hospital, Holmes said. All three will return home to the U.S. before the program has ended.
University officials have suspended the program temporarily to observe three days of mourning in France, and will continue it through its planned end date on July 24. The university offered to fly students home if they wanted to leave before it ended.
According to Leslie's Facebook page, he is from Milan, Italy, and went to Torrey Pines High School in San Diego. Holmes said the missing student is known for being active in the campus community and has an interest in economics.
Leslie's family tried to contact him when they heard about the attack, but his phone is dead or out of service, said a family friend who was with Leslie's mother at her Del Mar home on Friday, but asked only to be identified by her first name, Antonella, to protect her privacy and the family's privacy during this time.
Leslie's mother is from Italy, and has family friends in the area who are going to hospitals and searching for him, Antonella said. Other students and the program's director are also looking for him, she said.
Leslie has visited Nice with family before, speaks Italian and English, and is familiar with the city, Antonella said.
The family is "concerned and they are grieving for everybody that has had any loss there and sending their prayers to everybody. They are confident that Nicolas is well," Antonella said. "He's not in any of the list of the deceased so that's comforting to them. They think that he might be in shock or just trapped some place and need the help of the police to get out."
Leslie is an only child who is "adored by everyone who knows him," said Antonella, who has known the family for 15 years. "He's a wonderful, caring, young adult, extremely motivated."
Leslie's uncle, Fabeo Bottini, and Bottini's wife, went from hospital to hospital looking for his nephew, The Wall Street Journal reported. He was staying in student housing, but didn't return to the building after the attack.
"Yesterday he was in the zone of the accident. From yesterday, we don't know _ he is missing," he told the newspaper.
His uncle said a friend saw Leslie running away from the promenade as the truck was passing.
"Maybe he is alive, but I don't know, maybe he is confused," he said.
Vice Provost Cathy Koshland and dean of students Joseph Defraine expressed condolences for the families, students and French community for the "tragic event" and "senseless violence."
The Nice attack is the latest tragedy to strike the Bay Area campus in less than a month.
Student Tarishi Jain was one of 20 hostages killed July 1 during a standoff at the Holey Artisan Bakery in Bangladesh. Authorities said armed extremists stormed into the bakery, saying they wanted to kill non-Muslims. In a battle with security forces, six attackers were killed.
