11.29am update after family links come to light
At least three people have been injured, one seriously, in a stabbing attack initially described as “indiscriminate” in southeast Norway, police say. “At this stage: three people injured and one person seriously injured,” wrote the police, in a tweet that may suggest that the toll could be heavier.
A few minutes later, the police clarified, also on Twitter, that they had “control over the alleged perpetrator” of the attack. “We can confirm that there was a family link between the perpetrator of the attack and one of the stabbed people,” Inspector Odd Skei Kosvteit said in a statement. “It’s a family from Syria and the perpetrator and one of the injured are married,” he added.
Students from a nearby high school who witnessed the scene
The assault happened in a valley called Numedal, with Norwegian media reporting that it took place near a bus stop, near a convenience store and a high school, in the village of Nore and Uvdal which has less than 3,000 inhabitants. “I have no knowledge of prior threats,” said the mayor of the municipality, Jan Gaute Bjerke, to the TV2 channel. “This kind of episode usually happens like a clap of thunder in a blue sky.”
According to the NRK channel, several students witnessed the incident. Several people allegedly tried to overpower one person who was stabbing another, the channel said. “There was a lot of blood,” testified a resident to the chain. Other witnesses spoke of a woman lying injured, near “a large pool of blood”. According to witnesses quoted by the Norwegian media, numerous police patrols and ambulances, as well as three medical helicopters, were dispatched to the scene.
The Numedal region is located north of Kongsberg, a town where a bow and knife attack killed five people last October. Its author, a Dane suffering according to experts from psychiatric disorders, has also been tried since Thursday in Norway.
