Rio de Janeiro, Dec 28, (dpa/GNA) – Nine people, including five children, have been killed in a knife attack in Suriname, police said on Sunday.
Two people were seriously injured in the stabbing that took place in a suburb of the capital Paramaribo and have been hospitalized, they said.
When police officers arrived at the scene, the perpetrator began attacking them too, but they shot his legs and were able to arrest him.
Four of those killed are the man’s own children, broadcaster Star Nieuws reported, citing a police spokesman.
The 43-year-old reportedly stabbed his kids before attacking several neighbours.
According to initial findings, the man was undergoing psychiatric treatment.
President Jennifer Simons extended her condolences to the victims and their families, expressing her shock over the incident.
“At a time when family and friends should be supporting and comforting each other, we are confronted with the harsh reality that the world also has another side: a father who takes the lives of his own children and also kills his neighbours in the process,” she wrote on Facebook.
Suriname, a small South American nation wedged between Guyana and French Guiana on the Caribbean, is home to some 630,000.
GNA