Four young children, who were stabbed in a park in the French town of Annecy on Thursday, are now in stable condition. The children, aged between one and three, are currently undergoing treatment in hospital. A three-year-old British child is among the injured, another is Dutch. During the attack, police overpowered and arrested the attacker after he entered a children’s playground. Two adults also got hurt in the attack, with one still in critical condition. Police have confirmed that the suspect is a 31-year-old Syrian, who had refugee status in Sweden, reported the BBC.
French Prime Minister Élisabeth Borne and Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin went to the scene of the incident. The French Prime Minister said that the attacker had “no criminal or psychiatric record.” Regional deputy Antoine Armand described the attack as “abominable” and said authorities were investigating the matter, however, they knew “very little”. He further said that it doesn’t seem that the suspect had any kind of terrorist motivation.
French President Emmanuel Macron termed the attack as ‘an attack of absolute cowardice’.
#BREAKING President Macron calls French Alps stabbing an ‘attack of absolute cowardice’ pic.twitter.com/x9LmnapCN1
— AFP News Agency (@AFP) June 8, 2023
Video footage of the attack has been doing rounds on social media which shows a little playground where children are playing normally. A man then enters the premises with a knife in his hands and soon screams echoed throughout the playground. From the video, it was evident that the attacker was looking for children to attack them. He moves forward and attacks a child who was in a pushchair.
According to the police, the suspect has refugee status in Sweden. He left behind a wife and a three-year-old kid when he came to France recently. In an unsuccessful asylum application last year for refugee status in France, he said he was a Syrian Christian.
