A youngster died and a number of other different individuals have been injured in Villach, Austria, on Saturday after a person attacked them with a knife, officers mentioned. A suspect has been detained in reference to the assault; it isn’t clear whether or not he knew the victims.
The assault occurred round 4 p.m. native time, killing a 14-year-old and injuring 4 different individuals, based on the mayor of Villach, a metropolis within the south close to the Italian and Slovenian borders. The police advised The Associated Press that two individuals have been severely injured.
The suspect is a 23-year-old Syrian man with authorized residence in Austria, native police officers mentioned in an interview with Austria’s public broadcaster ORF. It isn’t identified if he lived in Villach. The motive can be unknown, however police are investigating the suspect’s background, mentioned Rainer Dionisio, a spokesman for the police division in Carinthia, the province the place Villach is positioned.
Peter Kaiser, Carinthia’s governor, known as for the “harshest penalties” for the attacker, saying the perpetrator “should be placed on trial, imprisoned, and deported” in a post on X. Town’s mayor, Günther Albel, wrote on Meta: “To all those that sow hatred and violence, I say: You’ll not win.”
Several similar attacks in neighboring Germany in latest months, together with a automobile assault in Munich final week, have pushed migration to the forefront of that nation’s nationwide election marketing campaign.
Hundreds of thousands of Syrians have sought refuge in Europe after a preferred rebellion towards the nation’s autocratic longtime chief, Bashar al-Assad, that started in 2011 changed into a civil conflict. The big migration has strained social security nets in Europe and stirred concern about assimilation, which has at instances taken overtly xenophobic kind and supplied a gap for right-wing, nationalist political actions.
The collapse of the Assad regime in December prompted a number of European nations to pause authorized proceedings on asylum standing for Syrians. Austria has mentioned it will plan to deport Syrians whose claims for asylum failed.
Violence is comparatively unusual in Austria, which was ranked because the fifth-safest nation on this planet as of 2023, based on the Global Peace Index.
