"They went here for a picnic," the Spanish ambassador to Ireland, Mr Jose Maria San Pastor, said on the steps of Tyrone County Hospital.
Their Spanish families, including those of the dead boy and the student leader could not understand how the group had been caught in a terrorist bomb, he said. They had no idea their children were in Northern Ireland.
Fourteen children from the Spanish group holidaying in Buncrana, Co Donegal, had been injured, he said, five critically.
"In Spain we are accustomed to terrorism," said Mr San Pastor, who had travelled from the Spanish embassy in Dublin.
Twenty-six people, most of them in a stable condition, were being treated in the Omagh hospital, the clinical director, Dr Clive Russell, said last night.
Among the injured were two of the Spanish children, a baby and four other young children. One of the nurses in the hospital had identified her brother's body yesterday, he said.
Asked whether the hospital's emergency plan helped, Dr Russell said he did not think anything could have made any difference.
Those with major orthopaedic wounds had been transferred to the five other hospitals receiving the wounded. One surgeon had travelled from Sligo to help, others had come from elsewhere in Northern Ireland. Young and old doctors worked alongside each other. And everyone had been very distressed by what they had seen.
The Rev Canon John Hay, who had been visiting patients, said he had ministered to a 12-year-old boy, "who didn't even know his right leg was missing". One of his parishioners had been injured in a bomb more than 20 years ago, he said, so he understood the lasting suffering of bomb victims.
He met a middle-aged woman who was removed to another hospital where she later died, he said. "I prayed with her. Then they took her away. She had a leg missing and two bits of plank as a splint on the other. It was a terrible sight." The woman had been shopping with her friend, who died at the scene, and was found by her son lying on the pavement. Asked how clergymen coped with the devastation he said, "I just went in to minister to them. And then I went home and cried, in private."
Enniskillen bomb victim, Jim Dickson, walked in on a cane to visit the latest bomb victims. Six weeks ago he had his 28th operation, his friends said.
He told reporters that the injured would face "years of suffering". And he blamed politicians and the release of terrorist prisoners for the bomb. "Mr Blair talks about justice. But is he going to get these people, put them in jail for two years, then give them a broken handshake."
Mr Dickson said it made his "stomach sick" to see the latest victims. He had visited others in Enniskillen the previous night.
"The men of violence have been exalted to too high a position," he said. "Animals are being put into power and paraded around the country."
