Horror as one person killed and another seriously injured by rampaging knifeman in Rotterdam

20 September 2024, 07:57

One person was killed and another injured by a man wielding "two long knives" in the Dutch city of Rotterdam on Thursday night.

The man was reported in local media to have shouted "Allahu Akbar", which suggests a motive of Islamist terrorism. But police did not confirm this and said they were still exploring the attacker's motivation.

A spokesman for the police said said officers at the scene had also heard the man shouted the phrase. "It's part of the investigation," he said.

The attacker was also injured and arrested - and was taken to hospital along with his surviving victim.

The stabbings took place near the landmark Erasmus Bridge in the port city, which is the Netherlands' second largest city, with a population of around 660,000.

A sports instructor, Reniel Renato David Litecia, said he hit the attacker with two sticks after seeing him attack somebody and managed to take the knives and throw them away.

He said he at first he thought it was a fight, "but when I started running in that direction I saw that it wasn't a fight. 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 assailant is believed to have attacked one person in an underground car park and then a second victim near a busy terrace near one end of the bridge that spans the New Maas river that runs through Rotterdam.

Ms Arntz also said it was too early in the investigation to establish a motive.

"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," she said.

The identities of the victims and suspect were not made public.