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One dead and nine wounded after suspected knife attack in France One dead and eight wounded after suspected knife attack in France
(about 4 hours later)
One person has been killed and at least nine others wounded near Lyon in central France after a suspected knife attack, a police source told Reuters. A man wielding a skewer and knife went on the rampage in the French city of Lyon on Saturday, leaving a 19-year-old man dead and eight others injured, three of them critically. A police source said the alleged perpetrator was an Afghan asylum-seeker previously unknown to the police and the intelligence services.
A suspect who was carrying a knife was arrested after the attack on Saturday in the city of Villeurbanne, while authorities were hunting for a suspected second attacker believed to be carrying a metal spike used to roast meat. An eyewitness in Villeurbanne, a suburb of Lyon, described the attack as frenzied. “There was a man at the 57 [bus stop] who started striking out with a knife in all directions,” said a young girl whose top was stained with blood.
The source said the motivation for the suspected attack, reported to have taken place around 1430 GMT, was not immediately clear. A helicopter was patrolling the area, a Reuters correspondent at the location reported. “There was blood everywhere,” she added.
The suspected attacker assaulted residents waiting at a bus stop and then ran towards an underground station before being seized by other local people and transport staff, Lyon mayor Gérard Collomb told reporters. Of the eight people wounded in the attack, three were in a critical condition, said the prosecutor’s office. Paramedics treated another 20 people at the scene for shock.
The mayor of Lyon, Gérard Collomb, a former interior minister, visited the site of the attack but in comments to journalists would not be drawn on what had provoked the incident. The man who carried out the attack had acted quite suddenly, he said.
The mayor of Villeurbanne, Jean-Paul Bret, paid tribute to people at the scene and security staff at the nearby metro station who overpowered the suspect as he tried to make his escape. Police arrested the suspected attacker and were holding him in custody on suspicion of murder and attempted murder, the Lyon prosecutor’s office told AFP.
The reasons for the attack were still not clear. The national anti-terrorism prosecutor’s office had been informed but had not taken charge of the case.
A group representing the region’s mosques also issued a statement condemning the killing and the “deadly madness that inhabits those who try to sow hatred and violence”.
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