Breaking : Four children and an adult injured in knife attack in French Alps

France’s interior minister says attack took place in a square in the town of Annecy

Seven people, including six children, have been injured in a mass stabbing in the town of Annecy in the French Alps, security sources told AFP. A man armed with a knife attacked a group of children aged around three years old as they played in a park near the lake in the town at around 9:45 am (0745 GMT), a security source who asked not to be named and a local official told AFP.

Four children and an adult have been injured in a knife attack in the picturesque town of Annecy in the French Alps. At least three of the victims are in a critical condition in hospital.

At about 9.45am, a man armed with a knife entered a children’s playground near the town’s famous lake and attacked a group of children aged about three years old as they played, a security source and a local official told AFP.

The French president, Emmanuel Macron, tweeted that it was an act of “absolute cowardice” and that the nation was in shock.

Witnesses described the suspected knife-man running around in a frenzy, apparently attacking people at random, before he was stopped by police near the banks of Lake Annecy.

“He wanted to attack everyone. I moved away and he lunged at an old man and woman and stabbed the old man,” former professional footballer Anthony Le Tallec, who was running in the park, told the local Dauphine Libéré newspaper.

Another witness, Malo, told BFMTV that the culprit attacked the children before targeting an old man and was “shouting, but it wasn’t really comprehensible”.

Another witness told local public radio, France Bleu, that the attacker had seem “confused”.

One witness, named as Nelly, told France Info radio: “People were running, crying, panicking … it was horrible.”

The Haute-Savoie MP, Virginie Duby-Muller, told BFMTV: “I’m horrified … attacking children is abominable. It’s unthinkable what happened here this morning in a place which is so calm and peaceful, a place loved by residents and tourists alike. We’re shaken.”

National police, rather than anti-terrorist investigators, are heading the investigation. Police originally said six children had been injured.

The French interior minister, Gérald Darmanin, tweeted that the suspect “has been arrested thanks to the rapid reaction of security forces”.

“Several people including children have been injured by an individual armed with a knife in a square in Annecy,” he tweeted.

France Info reported that the man was aged 32, was carrying Syrian identity papers and was an asylum seeker. BFMTV reported that the man had refugee status. A police source told AFP that checks on the man, who was arrested at the scene, were ongoing, but he was unknown to French security services.

The prime minister, Élisabeth Borne, was travelling to the scene and MPs in the national parliament held a minute’s silence as news of the attack broke in the French media.

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