Four children, aged between 1 to 3 years old, who were injured in a mass stabbing attack at a park in the French town of Annecy, are now in a stable condition, officials confirmed.
The officials told the BBC that the injured children, including a three-year-old British child, are currently being treated in hospital.
Two adults were also injured in Thursday’s attack, out of which one remains in a critical condition.
Video footage of the attack uploaded to social media shows a little playground where children are running around, while their parents and minders are also present.
Then the suspect, a 31-year-old Syrian who had refugee status in Sweden, comes in with a knife and starts attacking the children, some in pushchairs, before fleeing the scene and stabbing an elderly man nearby.
Police intervened and the perpetrator was shot in the legs. He was arrested at the scene.
During the incident, the attacker invoked the name of Jesus Christ, reports the BBC.
Shortly after the attack, Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne and Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin visited the crime spot.
Addressing reporters, Borne said the attacker has “no criminal or psychiatric record”.
Meanwhile, Annecy prosecutor Line Bonnet-Mathis has said that “doesn’t seem to be any kind of terrorist motivation”.
Police have said that the suspect has refugee status in Sweden and recently came to France, leaving behind a wife and three-year-old daughter.
In an unsuccessful asylum application last year for refugee status in France, he said he was a Syrian Christian.
The French National Assembly observed a minute of silence and roads are blocked around the scene of the attack.
President Emmanuel Macron tweeted that the nation was in “shock” over the “act of cowardice”.
“Absolute cowardice this morning in a park in Annecy. Children and an adult are between life and death. The nation is in shock. Our thoughts are with them, their families and the emergency services.”
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