The man suspected of carrying out the knife attack in the French town of Annecy had applied for asylum in Switzerland, Italy and France, said French Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin.
The suspect, a 31-year-old man originally from Syria, stabbed four children and two adults in a playground in the small French Alpine town of Annecy, located 40 kilometres south of Geneva, Switzerland.
The youngest victims are aged 22 to 36 months, one of whom is being treated by the Geneva University Hospitals HUG. The children are now in stable condition, officials have told the BBCExternal link.
A video circulating on social media shows the man, identified as Abdalmasih H., attacking six people with a folding knife, and raising his arms to the sky shouting in English “in the name of Jesus.”
The motives of the attack remain unclear, as there is “no apparent terrorist motivation,” said Annecy public prosecutor, Line Bonnet-Mathis. The alleged attacker underwent a psychiatric examination on Friday.
It appears that the man was not under the influence of drugs or alcohol, but he had been homeless in Annecy since autumn 2022. Father of a three-year-old, he had been granted asylum in Sweden in 2013, but after 10 years he was unable to obtain Swedish nationality.
He then separated from his wife and moved to France, where he “suffered from serious depression,” his mother told AFP.
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