HRADEE KRALOVE, Czech Republic: A 16-year-old boy killed two women in a knife attack at a discount shop in the Czech Republic on Thursday, police said, adding the motive remained unclear.
Police arrested the teenager, a Czech national, minutes after the attack at an Action branch on the outskirts of Hradec Kralove, around 100 kilometers (60 miles) east of Prague.
“Both of those attacked suffered injuries which were so serious that they could not be saved despite all efforts of the rescuers,” police said on X.
Police spokeswoman Iva Kormosova said the teenager attacked a shop assistant at the counter and another worker in a service area of the store.
The attacker’s motive was unclear but that there was nothing to indicate a terror attack, police said.
“The information we have for now seems to suggest he chose the victims randomly,” they added.
Rescuers received the first call about 0730 GMT, half an hour after the shop had opened.
“When we arrived, we found two people stabbed,” Anatolij Truhlar, head doctor of the local air rescue service, told the private CNN Prima News TV channel.
“Unfortunately, despite 40 minutes of resuscitation efforts, both persons died,” he added.
Police were deployed outside the Action discount store where a lone candle flickered, and a part of an adjacent car park was closed with police tape until Thursday afternoon.
“I think you’re not safe anywhere, given what’s going on around us,” passer-by Adela Ptackova told AFP.
Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala expressed condolences to the families of the victims, calling the murders “an incomprehensible, horrendous act.”
Terror attacks are rare in the Czech Republic, an EU and NATO member of 10.9 million people, but in 2023 a student killed 14 people and wounded 25 in a shooting rampage at a Prague university.
The Czech Republic’s southern neighbor Austria is reeling from the murder of a teenager in a knife attack by a Syrian asylum seeker in the city of Villach at the weekend.
Teenager kills two women in knife attack at Czech shop
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Teenager kills two women in knife attack at Czech shop
- Police arrested the teenager, a Czech national, minutes after the attack at an Action branch on the outskirts of Hradec Kralove
- The attacker’s motive was unclear but that there was nothing to indicate a terror attack, police said
Greek coast guard search for 15 after migrant boat found adrift
- The two survivors reported that the vessel had become unstable due to bad weather and there was no means of getting shelter, food or water
ATHENS: Greek coast guard were on Monday searching for 15 people who fell into the water from a migrant boat that was found drifting off the coast of Crete with 17 bodies on board.
The 17 fatalities, all of them men, were discovered on Saturday on the craft, which was taking on water and partially deflated, some 26 nautical miles (48 kilometers) southwest of the island.
Post-mortem examinations were being carried out to determine how they died but Greek public television channel ERT suggested they may have suffered from hypothermia or dehydration.
A Greek coast guard spokeswoman told AFP that two survivors reported that “15 people fell in the water” after the motor cut out on Thursday, then the vessel drifted for two days.
At the time, Crete and much of the rest of Greece was battered by heavy rain and storms.
The two survivors reported that the vessel had become unstable due to bad weather and there was no means of getting shelter, food or water.
The vessel had 34 people on board and had left the Libyan port of Tobruk on Wednesday, the Greek port authorities said. Most of those who died came from Sudan and Egypt.
It was initially spotted by a Turkish-flagged cargo ship on Saturday, triggering a search that included ships and aircraft from the Greek coast guard and the European Union border agency Frontex.
Migrants have been trying to reach Crete from Libya for the last year, as a way of entering the European Union. But the Mediterranean crossing is perilous.
In Brussels, the EU’s 27 members on Monday backed a significant tightening of immigration policy, including the concept of returning failed asylum-seekers to “return hubs” outside the bloc.
The UN refugee agency said more than 16,770 asylum seekers in the EU have arrived on Crete since the start of the year — more than any other island in the Aegean Sea.
Greece’s conservative government has also toughened its migration policy, suspending asylum claims for three months, particularly those coming to Crete from Libya.
