Teenage boy killed, 5 injured in knife attack in Austria, Police arrest 23 YO Syrian man

A 14-year-old boy died and five others were injured in a knife attack that broke out in southern Austria on Saturday. Following the incident, the authorities noted that they had arrested a 23-year-old suspect in the case. The suspect was detained in the city of Villach on Saturday.

The officials said that the attacker was a Syrian national with legal residence in Austria. The victims of the attack were all men and out of those injured, two are in a critical condition. Police Spokesperson Rainer Dionisio said that the motive of the attack was not immediately known. He mentioned that the police are currently probing the background of the attacker. “We have to wait until we get secure information,” he said.

Dionisio pointed out that a 42-year-old man who works for a food delivery company, and who was also Syrian, witnessed the incident from his car and later drove towards the suspect to prevent things from getting worse, ORF reported.

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Lawmakers sent condolences

Peter Kaiser, the governor of the Austrian province of Carinthia, expressed his condolences to the family of the 14-year-old victim. “This outrageous atrocity must be met with harsh consequences. I have always said with clarity and unambiguously: those who live in Carinthia, in Austria, have to respect the law and adjust to our rules and values," Kaiser said in a statement.

Erwin Angerer, a lawmaker for the far-right Freedom party, blamed the incident on the country’s “disastrous asylum policy”. Meanwhile, Austria’s Interior Minister Gerhard Karner will be heading to Villach on Sunday morning. The authorities said that it was not clear whether the suspect acted on his own and continued to search for potential additional suspects.

The attack came after several European nations, including Austria, said in December that they are suspending decisions on asylum claims by Syrian nationals because of the unclear political situation in their homeland following the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s draconian regime.

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With inputs from AFP.