Eleven staff and friends wiped out from 'Café of Angels' in Paris massacre

A group of 11 friends and colleagues were brutally wiped out in one fell swoop when two ISIS gunmen unleashed a hail of bullets at the La Belle Equipe café on Friday night.

They had gathered together for the 35th birthday party of a waitress called Houda Saadi, who worked at the nearby Café des Anges – meaning Café of Angels.

The Tunisian woman was joined by her 36-year-old sister Halima, a mother of two young boys, and her two brothers Khaled and Bashir.

Both Houda and Halima were slaughtered in the gunfire, and their brothers, who had miraculously survived unharmed, fought desperately to save their lives on the blood-smeared floor of the café.

Karim, 38, a father-of-two also of Tunisian descent, also rushed to help one of the sisters in her final moments.

'I knelt in the blood and held her, saying, ça ça, ça va, don't be afraid,' he told MailOnline.

'Her breathing was rattling, as if she was snoring, and I don't know if she saw me. There was nothing anybody could do.'

Khaled, who also worked at the Café des Anges, began giving one of his sisters CPR but his attempts were in vain.

One of the sisters passed away on the floor of the café while the other, who had been shot in the head, died later in hospital.

Speaking after the massacre, he said: ‘I was inside when they came and started shooting everyone on the terrace and inside.

‘I laid on the ground on my stomach hoping to avoid the bullets. When I heard that there was no more shooting I raised my head but they started shooting again so I hid again.

‘It lasted a minute in total, but it was very long. I then went out of the restaurant and they were all dead or suffering.

‘I found Halima but she died on the spot. I tried to save my second sister Houda. I moved her with a friend of hers named Sam. We moved her to another restaurant nearby.

'I left Sam with Houda so he could talk to her and keep her awake and tell her that we were there because she was still breathing.’

The majority of the 19 tragic victims at the La Belle Equipe café were from the birthday celebrations, including five members of staff from the Café des Ange and six of their friends.

The scenes in the café were horrific, with one witness telling MailOnline that he saw a dead woman hunched over a table 'with her eyes out of her sockets'.

Those killed were the young and fashionable, cut down in the prime of their lives. Among them was Michelli Gil Jaimez, a 27-year-old Mexican woman who had lived in Paris for three years and worked at La Belle Equipe.

Just days before the massacre she had gotten engaged to an Italian, who posted a heartbreaking tribute to her on Facebook, saying: 'I love you, my love. Rest in peace.'

'Michelli was the sun of this restaurant, even when it was raining,' said her friend Juan, 34, fighting back tears.

Others who spent their final moments celebrating with Houda were the hero Ludovic Boumbas, who died sacrificing himself to save his friend Chloe Clement; Romanian Lacrimioava Pop, known as Lacri, and her partner Ciprian Calciu; Hyacinthe Koma; Djamila Houd, 41; Guillaume Le Dramp, 33; Romain Feuillade, 31; and René Bichon.

Chloe, who is recovering in hospital, is said to be so traumatised she keeps repeating her saviour's name.

The manager of Café des Anges, 27-year-old Virgile Grunberg, went to visit Chloe in hospital and said: 'She was on morphine and was in shock. She would barely speak.

'She felt guilty because Ludovic died for her. She just kept repeating his name again and again.'

Greg Lima, 37, a technician and acrobat, was a good friend of several of the victims, particularly Hyacinthe Koma.

'I had been sitting and chatting to Hyacinthe for three hours before he was killed,' he said. 'He didn't want to go to the birthday party, he wanted to meet a girl instead. But the others said "Come on, come on", and persuaded him.

'He went. And a few hours later he was dead.'

The friends told of their memories as ISIS issued a chilling new video warning that countries taking part in air strikes against Syria will suffer the same fate as Paris.

In the footage, gun-wielding jihadis claimed they will attack Washington D.C. next.

The specific threat against the US capital emerged as CIA director John Brennan warned that more atrocities will be committed against the West by the Islamist terror group.

But the message did nothing to distract the minds of a mourning nation. This afternoon, at 12pm, the bells tolled outside the café, which is a short walk from the fated La Belle Equipe café, and the staff and local community gathered outside to pay their respects.

This was a long way from the high profile memorial services held at the Notre Dame cathedral, at the Place de la Republique and elsewhere.

Apart from MailOnline, no media were present. This was an intimate moment for a close-knit community united in sorrow.