United Kingdom: one dead, several injured after knife attacks in Birmingham
A police forensic officer gathers evidence after a knife attack in central Birmingham, UK on September 6.
Oli SCARFF / AFP
Text by: RFI Follow
2 min
Several knife attacks in central Birmingham took place overnight from Saturday to Sunday.
Attacks whose circumstances are not yet known but which resulted in the death of a man and left seven injured, two of whom were serious.
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With our correspondent in London,
Muriel Delcroix
Police have opened a murder investigation and are looking for a suspect.
At a press conference on Sunday August 6, authorities said the attacks were linked and took place in four different streets in central Birmingham, between half past midnight and 2 a.m.
According to investigators, a man, who has since been actively wanted, went through busy streets and randomly assaulted several people.
A man died
while seven other people were injured, two seriously, a man and a woman.
Rise in violence
The motivations for this gesture are still unknown according to the police but they have ruled out for the moment the trail of a terrorist attack, settling of scores between gangs or hate crimes.
While waiting to see more clearly, the police want to be reassuring while calling on the inhabitants of Birmingham to remain vigilant.
West Midlands commissioner David Jamieson explained that a
rise in violence
was "
almost inevitable
" because of the frustration and stress caused by the coronavirus pandemic.
Without going so far as to link this last incident directly to this phenomenon.
He also recalled that the number of violent attacks involving young men had increased in recent months and therefore called on the authorities to deal
with this problem as quickly as possible.
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