“We were just shopping. Suddenly we saw the man walking towards the woman with the baby. At first we wanted to go there to help the woman, but I told my brother that we had better run away. We walked into a store. Then the mother came to us with her baby. She was injured and bleeding.”
Two men tell a reporter from the Australian TV channel Nine News how they tried to help a woman and her baby who were victims of a stabbing at the Westfield Bondi Junction shopping center in the Australian city of Sydney. Six people died. Five of them were women, according to police. The perpetrator was shot dead by a policewoman.
The woman who took refuge in the store with her baby has died. According to Australian media, it concerns 38-year-old Ashlee Good and her 9-month-old daughter. The men who saw Good and her daughter being stabbed had tried to stop the bleeding. They pushed clothes from the store racks onto the wounds. But the mother died in hospital. Her baby required surgery for serious injuries.
After the attack, a total of eight people were taken to hospital, “some in critical, life-threatening condition,” police said.
The perpetrator of the attack was shot dead by a policewoman. When he started his attack in the shopping center, the police officer happened to be nearby. Witnesses quickly called her and she chased the attacker to the fifth floor of the complex. “He then turned to her and raised his weapon,” a police chief said at a news conference. The officer then shot him. The perpetrator died. “She saved a lot of lives,” the commissioner said of the officer’s actions.
According to the police, the man entered the shopping center at 3 p.m. local time and then left. Twenty minutes later he returned and began his attack. It is not yet clear who it is or what his motives were. In the meantime, the police have ruled out a terrorist attack.
Australia’s Prime Minister Anthony Albanese called the attack “a horrific act of violence, targeting innocent people shopping on an ordinary Saturday.”
Britain’s King Charles responded on Saturday to the stabbing in the Australian city of Sydney. “My wife (Queen Camilla, ed.) and I were shocked when we heard about the tragic attack,” said Charles, who is also Australia’s formal head of state. The British king added that his thoughts are with the victims and their families.
Pope Francis, in turn, expressed himself “deeply saddened” by the “senseless” stabbing. “The Pope expresses his solidarity with all those affected by this tragedy,” the Vatican said on Saturday afternoon.
Australian gun laws regarding knives and firearms are particularly strict. Attacks like this are therefore rare.
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