A suspect was arrested in Norway after at least three people were stabbed with a sharp object, leaving one critically injured Friday, police said.
Police at first said the attack in the village of Nore as random, but later clarified that there was “a family relationship” between the assailant and at least one of the victims.
“This is a family from Syria, and the perpetrator and one of the injured are married,” police inspector Odd Skei Kostveit said in a statement.
Police said the suspect was a man who had received a restraining order in December following an investigation of domestic violence.
The suspect, who also was injured, was held on suspicion of “grievous bodily harm,” police said.
Two people were flown to a nearby hospital by helicopter, police said.
Nore, a village in the Numedal valley, is located 100 kilometers (62 miles) east of Oslo, Norway’s capital.
It was not immediately clear where in the village the attack took place. Norwegian media said a bus driver and students from a local school overpowered the suspect.
The school confirmed the incident on its website and said that its crisis management team was assisting the police and following up with the school’s students and staff.
Police spokesman Tor Richard Jansen confirmed that civilians overpowered the alleged assailant and “handed him over to firefighters” who arrived before the police.
William Scott, who was in the area delivering goods, told the VG newspaper he saw an injured woman lying on the ground.
“At first I thought it was a collision because there was a large pool of blood on the ground,” he said.
Norwegian broadcaster TV2 cited a witness saying bleeding victims came running from behind a convenience store. Pools of blood were seen on the asphalt, TV2 said.
“Such acts of violence are serious and despairing,” Norwegian Justice Minister Emilie Enger Mehl said in a statement.
The village which is surrounded by mountains, sits 80 kilometers (50 miles) north of Kongsberg, where five people were fatally stabbed and four wounded in October when Espen Andersen Bråthen attacked strangers with a bow and arrows and knives.
Andersen Bråthen pleaded guilty at the start of his trial Wednesday. He also faces 11 counts of attempted murder for the attack in Kongsberg, a former mining town of 26,000 people.