Stabbing rampage in Lyon leaves 19-year-old dead

At least one person was killed and eight more wounded by a man wielding a knife and a kitchen skewer at a Lyon suburb on Friday.

“There was a man at the [bus stop] who started striking out with a knife in all directions,” a young girl who witnessed the attack told the AFP news agency.

“He managed to hit, to cut open one person’s stomach,” she added. “He stabbed a guy in the head, he cut the ear of a lady and the lady was dying at the bus stop and no-one came to help.”

Eventually, the girl managed to get the injured woman on a bus, which drove away from the scene.

“There was blood everywhere,” the eyewitness said.

The attacker then tried to flee towards a nearby subway station, but he was stopped by subway security and people at the scene. Police later announced the suspect was in custody.

Three people remained in critical condition after the attack. Another 20 were treated for shock at the scene.

The attack took place at a stop in Lyon’s suburb of Villeurbanne

‘Naivety and laxity’

Police sources described the suspect as a 33-year-old Afghan asylum-seeker, but said the motive for the rampage was not immediately clear. It was also unclear if he knew the 19-year-old who had been killed.

The reports on the suspect’s nationality prompted a reaction from Marine Le Pen from the far-right National Rally party, who slammed the “naivety and laxity of our migration policy,” saying it posed a serious security threat.

A regional association of mosques slammed the attack and the “deadly madness that inhabits those who try to sow hatred and violence.”

The Friday stabbing comes three months after a radicalized Algerian Islamist planted a parcel bomb at Lyon shopping street, injuring 14 people.

dj/sms (AFP, dpa, AP, Reuters)

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