Shoppers hid in backrooms or ran screaming from the scene, while others stayed with injured victims. Police said they believed the attack was not a ‘terrorism incident.’
A man killed six people and injured at least 12 others during a stabbing rampage at a popular shopping mall in Sydney, Australia, on Saturday afternoon, in one of the country’s deadliest acts of mass violence in recent decades.
The authorities said a man wielding a knife entered the Westfield Bondi Junction shopping center and began stabbing people before a lone police officer shot and killed him.
Five people died of their injuries at the scene, and a 38-year-old woman died later in the hospital, the police said. Among those hospitalized, some in critical condition, was a 9-month-old baby.
Five women, between 20 and 55 years old, and a man in his 30s were killed, according to the police.
Two of the victims had no family in Australia, Anthony Cooke, the assistant police commissioner for New South Wales, said at a news conference on Sunday morning. Efforts were being made to contact their families overseas, he added.
The victims who remained hospitalized, including the baby, were in serious but stable condition, Commissioner Cooke said. At least 12 victims, including nine women and two men, were in the hospital in addition to the baby, the police said.
Police officials on Sunday identified the attacker as Joel Cauchi, 40, from Queensland, which is more than 1,000 miles north of Bondi Junction. Commissioner Cooke said that the police believed that he came to Sydney last month.
