New knife attack in England. An 11-year-old girl and a 34-year-old woman were taken to hospital after being victims of a knife attack in London on Monday, more precisely in Leicester Square, the police said on X. A suspect has been arrested, and the police do not believe there are any accomplices at large.
Police are on the scene in one of the busiest tourist areas of the British capital. A security perimeter has been set up.
A London Ambulance spokesman said the service was called at 12:36pm (Paris time). Emergency services said they “treated a child and an adult at the scene” before taking them to a trauma centre. Their condition has not yet been officially communicated.
“Doing this to a child is horrible.”
A tea shop worker intervened after hearing “a scream”. I “jumped on the attacker and kicked the knife away,” Abdullah, 29, told the BBC. “As soon as I saw him, I jumped on this guy, grabbed his hand… I put him on the ground and kicked the knife away,” he said. Other men came to help and held the attacker down for “four to five” minutes. He said he acted on reflex without taking the time to think. “It’s horrific to be honest, I’ve never seen anything like it before.” “To do that to a child is horrific,” he continued, pointing out that the attacker had blood on his face and chest.
The United Kingdom, where the carrying of firearms is strictly restricted, is experiencing a resurgence in knife violence (attacks on people, burglaries, etc.), which often involve young people. They increased by 7%, to almost 50,000 incidents last year, compared to 2022, and have almost doubled in ten years, according to the Office for National Statistics.
A knife attack that killed three girls on July 29 in Southport, fueled by rumors that have since been partially denied about the nationality of the suspect, a 17-year-old boy, on social networks. Riots, stirred up by the extreme right, shook the country for a week.
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