EBN- Two women have died after being attacked with a knife at a shopping mall in the Czech Republic, officials said Thursday.
>Police said they had detained a suspect who stabbed the two victims in a shop in the town of Hradec Kralove, about 100 kilometres (60 miles) east of Prague.
Police initially reported that the two victims were injured, one of them seriously. But later announced the deaths of the two victims, who were women whose identities were not revealed.
The suspect, a 16-year-old Czech national, was detained about 10 minutes after the attack about a kilometre away from the scene, police said. A knife was found nearby, police added.
Police investigation ongoing
The police also confirmed that the situation is under control and there is no danger to the public.
“The information we have for now seems to suggest he chose the victims randomly,” they added.
Rescuers received the first call at about 0730 GMT, half an hour after the shop had opened.
“When we arrived, we found two people stabbed,” Anatolij Truhlar, head doctor of the local air rescue service, told the private CNN Prima News TV channel.
“Unfortunately, despite 40 minutes of resuscitation efforts, both persons died,” he added.
Police were deployed outside the Action discount store where a lone candle flickered, and a part of an adjacent car park was closed with police tape until Thursday afternoon.
“I think you’re not safe anywhere, given what’s going on around us,” passer-by Adela Ptackova told AFP.
Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala expressed condolences to the families of the victims, calling the murders “an incomprehensible, horrendous act”.
Terror attacks are rare in the Czech Republic, an EU and NATO member of 10.9 million people. In 2023, however, a student killed 14 people and wounded 25 in a shooting rampage at a Prague university.
The Czech Republic’s southern neighbour Austria, is reeling from the murder of a teenager in a knife attack by a Syrian asylum seeker in the city of Villach on the weekend.
