A man wielding two knives has stabbed one person to death and seriously wounded another in a horrific attack in the Netherlands.
Police in Rotterdam have arrested a suspect who was also injured late on Thursday (September 19). It is believed the knifeman went on a violent rampage before a heroic bystander tackled him.
Officers are now investigating the stabbing which happened near the city’s landmark Erasmus Bridge. Police spokesperson Wessel Stolle said the motive wasn’t immediately clear, but detectives are looking “into all possible scenarios”.
Dutch daily De Telegraaf, citing witnesses at the scene, reported that a man attacked people at random with two knives while shouting Allahu Akbar, the Arabic phrase meaning God is great.
Stolle said police at the scene also heard that the man shouted the phrase and that it’s part of the investigation.
Sports instructor, Reniël Renato David Litecia, said he hit the attacker with two sticks after seeing him attack somebody and managed to grab the knives and hurl them away.
He said at first he thought it was a fight, but when he started running towards the scene he noticed that it wasn’t.
Litecia said: “It was a man with two long knives who was stabbing another young guy and when I started shouting he turned around and started approaching everyone who was around him.”
Another police spokesperson, Kristel Arntz, said the suspect is believed to have attacked one person in an underground parking lot and then a second victim near a busy terrace close to one end of the bridge, which spans the New Maas river running through Rotterdam.
Arntz also said it was too early in the investigation to establish a motive.
She said: “We have arrested a suspect, we are going to question him. We will look at all the witness statements and then we will look at what the possible motive was.”
Details of the victims and suspect have yet to be released.