In a rural area in central Canada, at least ten people die in knife attacks and many more are injured. The alleged perpetrators are on the run.
At least ten people have been killed and more than a dozen others injured in multiple knife attacks in rural Canada. Police were looking for two suspects after Sunday’s attacks in the province of Saskatchewan, a police official said.
The background to the bloody deeds in the indigenous community of James Smith Cree Nation and the nearby town of Weldon were initially unclear.
According to the preliminary findings of the police, the knife attacks were carried out at 13 different crime scenes. 15 injured were taken to hospitals, three rescue helicopters were deployed. Authorities believed that 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 about the knife attacks were received by the police on Sunday morning (local time). The two suspects, aged 30 and 31, fled in a car. They were spotted more than 300 kilometers south of the crime scenes in the provincial capital of Regina.
The police then expanded their manhunt beyond Saskatchewan to the neighboring provinces of Manitoba and Alberta. The three provinces together have an area that is almost half the size of Europe.
The 2,500-strong community of James Smith Cree Nation declared a state of emergency. Many Saskatchewan residents have been urged to get to safety. The authorities set up several checkpoints on motorways and roads, and “maximum police resources” were mobilized for the search.
Diane Shier, a Weldon resident, told the Canadian Press that her neighbor who lived with his grandson was killed in the attacks. “I’m devastated to have lost a very good neighbor,” Shier said. Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau described the killings as “appalling and heartbreaking”. In a message on Twitter, he expressed his condolences to the families of the victims.
