One dead as man stabs six people in random attack in southern Austria
The victims were all male.
A man stabbed six people in southern Austria on Saturday in what police said was a random attack that left a 14-year-old dead and four others injured.
The man, 23, was detained in the city of Villach, where the attack took place, police said.
He is a Syrian national with legal residence in Austria.
The victims were all male. Two were seriously injured and two sustained minor injuries, police said. Later on Saturday, police said a fifth person, also a man, was injured in the attack.
A 42-year old man who works for a food delivery company witnessed the incident from his car.
He drove towards the man and helped to prevent things from getting worse, police spokesman Rainer Dionisio told Austria’s public broadcaster ORF.
Police said it was not clear whether the man acted on his own and therefore they were searching for potential further suspects.
Peter Kaiser, the governor of the Austrian province of Carinthia, expressed his condolences to the family of the 14-year-old.
“This outrageous atrocity must be met with harsh consequences. I have always said with clarity and unambiguously, those who live in Carinthia, in Austria, have to respect the law and adjust to our rules and values.”
Erwin Angerer, an MP for the far-right Freedom Party, said his party had been warning about the situation in Austria as a result of the country’s “disastrous asylum policy”.
Austria’s interior minister Gerhard Karner was expected in Villach on Sunday.
Police said it was also not known whether there is any connection between the attacker and the victims.
According to the ministry of the interior, 24,941 foreigners applied for asylum in Austria in 2024. The largest group of applicants came from Syria, followed by Afghanistan.
Over the past two years, the number of asylum seekers has decreased significantly. In 2022, applications peaked at more than 100,000, while about 59,000 individuals sought asylum in 2023.
Several European countries, among them Austria, said in December they are suspending decisions on asylum claims by Syrian nationals because of the unclear political situation in their homeland after the fall of Bashar Assad.
