By Geert De Clercq
PARIS (Reuters) – Here is what we know so far about a knife attack that wounded four toddlers and two pensioners in the southeastern French town of Annecy on Thursday. Two of the children are fighting for their lives, but stable.
Who is the suspect?
The suspected attacker is a Syrian national who was carrying Syrian and Swedish identity papers, including a Swedish drivers’ license, according to French authorities.
French Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne said the 31-year-old was granted refugee status in Sweden 10 years ago and was in France legally. A subsequent asylum request in France had been refused on grounds Sweden had already approved one, she said.
An eyewitness video, verified by Reuters, shows a bearded man with sunglasses and a blue checkered headscarf running through the park, clutching a knife. Another shows him jumping a wall into a playground and lunging at a child in a pushchair as a woman tries to block his path.
The suspect was shot at by police and overpowered by officers. He is under investigation for attempted murder.
French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said on Thursday the man had no police record in France, was homeless and had been questioned by police on Sunday as he was washing himself in Lake Annecy. Darmanin also said it was “a troubling coincidence” that just four days before the attack the assailant’s request for asylum in France had been rejected.
Who was hurt in the attack?
The victims are four children aged between 22 months and 3 years and two pensioners aged 70 and 78. Two of the toddlers were in a critical but stable condition, Borne said.
On Friday President Emmanuel Macron visited a hospital in Grenoble where three of the four children are being taken care of. A fourth child is in a hospital in Geneva, Switzerland, French media reported.
One of the children wounded in the attack was British, another was Dutch, the prosecutor said on Thursday.
The stabbing was the first violent attack targetting children since 2012, when Franco-Algerian gunman Mohamed Merah shot three Jewish children and one of their parents, and then three soldiers, in Toulouse in 2012.
Where did the attack happen?
In a park in Annecy, a tranquil town at the foot of the French Alps that is popular for winter sports as well as for summer pursuits like hiking and parasailing. Annecy is known as the Pearl of the French Alps.
The lakeside Le Paquier park, whose name comes from the word for “pasture” in a local dialect, lies between the town centre and the northwestern corner of Lake Annecy.
(Compiled by Geert De Clercq; Editing by Richard Lough and Frances Kerry)
