Two stabbing incidents in Australia in 3 days: How common is such violence?

Australia is reeling from two stabbing incidents in three days. After the mall attack in Sydney on Saturday (13 April) afternoon, a 16-year-old boy wounded a bishop and a priest with a knife during a church service on Monday (15 April) evening in the city.

The Australian police said on Tuesday (16 April) that the knife attack at an Assyrian church was a “terrorist act” that had a religious motive.

The latest attack comes just a couple of days after a mass stabbing in a busy shopping mall in Sydney. It is rare for Australia to witness such violence.

Let’s take a closer look.

Australia church attack

A 16-year-old was arrested for allegedly attacking Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel and a priest at the Christ The Good Shepherd Church in Sydney’s suburb of Wakeley during a sermon on Monday.

As per BBC, a live stream of the sermon showed a person in black clothes approaching the altar. He was then seen attacking the bishop with a weapon not known immediately. The priest Isaac Royel was also injured during the attack.

Several parishioners quickly tried to intervene while screams reverberated in the church, reported CNN.

Two men, aged 53 and 39, also suffered cuts. They were treated by paramedics and taken to the hospital.

“The injured people suffered non-life threatening injuries and are being treated by NSW Ambulance paramedics,” police said in a statement, as per BBC.

The suspect, arrested by the New South Wales police, received treatment for wounds to his hand, reported BBC. As per an Australian Broadcasting Corporation report, the boy was convicted in January for several offences, including possession of a switch blade knife and stalking. However, he was released by a Sydney court on a good behaviour bond.

The 53-year-old Iraq-born bishop who was injured in the attack is a controversial and popular figure, whose sermons have garnered millions of views on social media. The church said in a statement on Tuesday that his condition was “improving”, AP reported.

NSW Police Commissioner Karen Webb told media on Tuesday that it was a premeditated attack. “We’ll allege there’s a degree of premeditation on the basis that this person has travelled to that location, which is not near his residential address, he has travelled with a knife and subsequently the bishop and the priest have been stabbed,” she said, as per AP.

“We will allege [the suspect] attended that church armed with a knife and stabbed the bishop and priest … We believe there are elements that are satisfied in terms of religious motivated extremism,” Webb was quoted as saying by CNN.

Reacting to the attack, Australian prime minister Anthony Albanese said “there is no place for violence in our community. There’s no place for violent extremism.”

The stabbing incident triggered an angry crowd of the bishop’s followers to assemble outside the church, leading to a clash with the police.

“People converged on that area and began to turn on police. People used what was available to them in the area, including bricks, concrete, palings, to assault police and throw missiles at police, and police equipment, and police vehicles,” the NSW Police Commissioner said, as per CNN.

At least two officers were hospitalised and vehicles were damaged in the riots, AFP reported.

Sydney mall attack

On Saturday, six people were killed and 12 others injured, including a nine-month-old baby, in a stabbing attack at a shopping mall in Westfield Bondi Junction in Sydney.

According to the NSW police commissioner, four women and a man were killed at the shopping mall, while another female victim died at the hospital during treatment.

Australian police identified the attacker as 40-year-old Joel Cauchi, saying he may have targeted women, reported CNN.

The suspect was shot dead at the scene by a lone senior police officer.

Australian PM Albanese called the mass stabbing a “horrific act of violence indiscriminately targeted at the innocent people going about an ordinary Saturday, doing their shopping.”

This was Australia’s worst act of mass violence since 2017.

Is violence common in Australia?

Australia has witnessed mass killings before. However, mass stabbings and shootings are uncommon in the country, partly due to strict gun laws, reported New York Times (NYT).

According to a 2017 study, Australia reported 14 mass shootings between 1964 and 2014.

In June 2019, at least four people were killed and one injured by a gunman in the main business district of Darwin, northern Australia.

A driver drove his car into a busy shopping street in Melbourne in 2017, killing six people and wounding over 20 others.

In December 2014, a gunman held 18 people captive in a cafe in Sydney. The police stormed the building 17 hours later. The clash with the police ended with the death of two hostages and the gunman.

A nurse set fire to a nursing home in Quakers Hill in 2011, leading to the death of 14 people.

Australia ’s worst mass shooting took place in April 1996. Dubbed the Port Arthur massacre, 35 people were shot dead in the Tasmanian tourist town. Weeks after the attack, the Australian government brought strict gun laws, putting a complete ban on semi-automatic rifles and shotguns.

As per The Conversation piece, due to tight gun laws, knives have become prevalent as weapons in the country.

The national homicide report from the Australian Institute of Criminology found that in 2020-21 knives and other sharp objects were used in 38 per cent of murders, followed by firearms (11 per cent) and hands and feet – nine per cent.

Australia has taken steps to curb knife attacks. Last year, Queensland introduced new laws to reduce the number of young people carrying knives, The Conversation article noted.

In New South Wales, the penalty has been doubled for carrying knives in public.

With inputs from agencies