At least ten people have been killed and more than a dozen others injured in multiple stabbing attacks in rural Canada. Police were looking for two suspects after Sunday’s bombings in the province of Saskatchewan, a police official said.
The background to the bloody acts in James Smith’s Cree Nation Indigenous community and the nearby town of Weldon was initially unclear.
The knife attacks were, according to preliminary findings the police committed at 13 different crime scenes. 15 injured were taken to hospitals, three rescue helicopters were deployed. Authorities believed some of the victims were targeted, while others were accidental victims. So far it has been “extremely difficult” to name a motive for the crime, said Deputy Commissioner Rhonda Blackmore of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.
According to their information, several alarm reports regarding the knife attacks were received by the police on Sunday morning (local time). The two suspects, aged 30 and 31, fled by car. They were spotted more than 300 kilometers south of the crime scenes in the provincial capital of Regina.
Police then expanded their manhunt beyond Saskatchewan to neighboring provinces of Manitoba and Alberta. The three provinces combined have an area that is nearly half the size of Europe.
The James Smith Cree community of 2,500 people has declared a state of emergency. Many Saskatchewan residents have been urged to seek safety. The authorities set up several checkpoints on highways and roads, and “maximum police resources” were mobilized for the search.
Weldon resident Diane Shier told The Canadian Press that her neighbor who lived with her grandson was killed in the attacks. “I’m devastated to have lost a very good neighbor,” Shier said. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau described the killings as “appalling and heartbreaking”. In a message on the online service Twitter He offered his condolences to the families of the victims.
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