SULAIMANI (ESTA) — At least four children were wounded by a Syrian national following a knife attack in the southeastern French town of Annecy on Thursday, according to police.
The attacker was an adult with legal refugee status in France, police said. The motive for the attack remained unclear as the investigations are still underway.
Two children and one adult were in life-threatening condition, while two children were slightly hurt, police added.
French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said on Twitter that the attacker had been arrested.
“Children and one adult are between life and death. The nation is in shock,” French President Emmanuel Macron said in a statement on Twitter, calling the attack “an act of absolute cowardice”.
Witnesses said at least one of the children wounded in the attack was in a stroller. The incident took place at around 0745 GMT in the playground of a lakeside park in Annecy, a town in the French Alps.
“He jumped (in the playground), started shouting and then went towards the strollers, repeatedly hitting the little ones with a knife,” a witness who gave his name as Ferdinand told BFM TV.
“Mothers were crying, everybody was running,” said George, another witness and owner of a nearby restaurant.
The TV channel showed footage of several policemen overpowering an individual in a park.
“Nothing more abominable than to attack children,” National Assembly speaker Yael Braun-Pivet said on Twitter. Parliament observed a minute of silence to mark the incident.
