Harry Athwal comforts the youngster after the Barcelona attack (Picture: Alamy Live News)

A British father refused to be cowed by the Barcelona terrorists and lay in the street to comfort a dying boy struck down by jihadists in the deadly van attack.

Harry Athwal, 44, from Birmingham had been holidaying in Spain when the attackers drove down Las Ramblas at speed, killing 13 people and injuring more than 100.

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One of their victims was a young boy aged about seven but hero Athwal refused to let him die alone.

The 44-year-old project manager was in Barcelona visiting his sister for a spontaneous trip to celebrate his own son Khye’s eighth birthday.

He saw the child was not moving and, ignoring police warnings to clear the area, went to be with the young boy.

Aftermath of the attack as people attend to the dying and wounded (Picture: Alamy Live News)

He told the Mirror: ‘He was unconscious, his leg was bent the wrong way, there was blood coming out of his head, I knew it was more than blood.

‘I was checking for a pulse and he didn’t have one. I put my hand on his back and I thought he had gone. I was stroking his hair and in floods of tears but I stayed with him, I sat there because I was not going to leave this child in the middle of the road.

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‘The police were telling me to move but I would not leave him. All the time I was thinking the terrorists could come back but I was not leaving that child. To me, he looked like my own son. He was my son’s age, seven or eight.’

Spanish police now believe 22-year-old Younes Abouyaaqoub drove the van through the crowded street. The original suspect, 17-year-old Moussa Oukabir who rented two vehicles in his brother’s name, using stolen ID, was shot dead at the coastal resort of Cambrils.

Suspects of the Barcelona and Cambrils attacks, (from top L) Moussa Oukabir, Said Aalla, Mohamed Hychami and Younes Abouyaaqoub (Picture: Getty)

Four others were killed in the gun battle during the early hours of Friday morning.

They were Said Aallaa, 18, and Mohamed Hychami, 24. Police said the group were armed with knives and machetes and wore fake suicide belts.

The identities of the two other people killed have not been released.

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An arrest warrant has been issued for Abouyaaqoub, who is now the prime suspect. He is said to be part of the terror cell that had planned to fill a lorry with explosives and detonate it.

The Spanish government is expected to make a decision today on whether to raise country’s terror threat level.

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