Shortly after attacking women
Sydney classifies knife attack in church as terrorism
April 16, 2024, 1:31 a.m
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A bishop and churchgoers are stabbed during church service in Sydney. A 15-year-old is arrested; investigators assume an act of terrorism. Just two days earlier, six people died in a shopping center.
Two days after the knife attack that left six dead in a shopping center in Sydney, four people were injured in a knife attack in a church in the Australian metropolis. After the attack in the Assyrian Christ the Good Shepherd Church in the west of the Australian metropolis, the police arrested a 15-year-old on suspicion and classified the act as an “act of terrorism”.
According to the emergency services, four people were injured in the attack in the church, including the suspected perpetrator. Images from a live broadcast showed a person approaching the altar, raising his right arm and stabbing the priest with a knife before being overpowered by churchgoers. Panic breaks out among the believers and screams ring out.
After the attack, violent clashes broke out outside the church between police and hundreds of outraged community members trying to get to the suspect. Two police officers were taken to hospital. An AFP journalist reported projectiles being thrown and police using shields to push the crowd away from the church. New South Wales Police Deputy Commissioner Andrew Holland said the crowd had an “emotional reaction to what happened at the church” – fueled by rumors circulating online. According to Holland, two police cars and several houses were damaged as people threw “bottles, stones and other objects.”
Shopping center: targeted attacks on women
On Saturday, a mentally ill man stabbed five women and a man to death in a Sydney shopping center and seriously injured numerous others, including a baby. The attacker was stopped by a policewoman who stood in the man’s way and shot him.
According to police, the 40-year-old had apparently targeted women. The investigators ruled out a terrorist background in this case. The perpetrator’s father told journalists about his son’s possible motive: “He wanted a girlfriend, but he had no social skills and was frustrated.”