A knife-wielding attacker injured five people, including four children, in a park in the eastern French city of Annecy on Thursday morning, French authorities told the AFP news agency.

The police arrested the man, a Syrian citizen with refugee status.

31-year-old Abdalmasih H. received refugee status on April 26, 2023 in Sweden, where he lived for ten years. He is married, his wife is Swedish, their daughter is three years old.

The couple separated eight months ago, and the man then arrived legally alone in France, where he submitted a second asylum application to the French authorities in November 2022, but it was rejected after he received refugee status in Sweden in the meantime, police sources said.

According to his own statement, the attacker belongs to the Syrian Christian community. He was wearing a cross at the time of the attack and had a Christian prayer book in his hand when he was arrested. He had no previous dealings with the police and is not listed in Secret Service records.

The attacked children are under the age of three.

Witnesses speaking on BFM news television said: at 3:10 in the morning, they noticed a man running screaming in the park along Lake Annecy, who suddenly attacked the children in the stroller with a knife, then insulted an adult who intervened, and finally attacked the police who arrived on the scene. who produced it. The knifeman said nothing during the attack.

“He wanted to attack everyone. I jumped away from him, and then he went straight at an uncle and an aunt, and stabbed the uncle."

- said football player Anthony Le Tallec, who was running in the park at the time of the attack, to the regional daily Dauphiné Libéré.

"It was all unreal. He screamed, but it was hard to tell what he was saying. He then attacked the children and started to run away, but the police arrived and tried to arrest him without firing a shot. When he realized he was trapped, he also attacked an elderly man, and then the police shot him in the leg," a witness told BFM news television.

Among the injured, two children and one adult are in a life-threatening condition, police sources told AFP. All the injured are being treated at the Annecy hospital.

Although the counter-terrorism prosecutor's office is also investigating what happened, it has not yet declared the attack a terrorist act, the criminal police is conducting the investigation. The knifeman has no psychological problems, so he can be interrogated, the police said.

President Emmanuel Macron on Twitter described the stabbing as a "cowardly attack" that left "children and an adult between life and death".

"The country was shocked by the news. Our thoughts are with them, their relatives and the emergency services," the president wrote.

In the National Assembly, the representatives and the member of the government present observed a minute of silence for the victims of the attack. Yael Braun-Pivet, the Speaker of the House of Commons, asked those present to observe a minute of silence for the victims of the serious attack and their relatives.

Prime Minister Élisabeth Borne and Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin indicated that they would visit the site of the attack in the afternoon.

MTI

Cover photo: GREGORY YETCHMENIZA / EFE