Witnesses have described the massacre that unfolded at a Sydney shopping center on Sunday afternoon when a man attacked several people, including a nine-month-old baby. The attacker, who stabbed six people to death, was later shot dead by police.
The baby’s mother, who was also stabbed, held the baby as he was taken to an ambulance, Reese Colmenares, a witness, told Reuters.
Ms Colmenares was one of 20 people hiding in a nearby hardware store when she saw people screaming and running out of the Westfield Bondi Junction shopping complex.
“It’s scary, there are little children, elderly people and people in wheelchairs everywhere,” she said.
‘I saw him running with a knife’
Photo credit: AFP
Pranjul Bokaria was returning from work when the disaster began. As police swarmed the area, chaos ensued as shoppers ran for their lives and hid in nearby stores. She escaped through an emergency exit and took shelter in a back room.
“I am alive and grateful,” she told the AFP news agency.
CCTV cameras at the mall show a man in an Australian rugby league shirt running through the mall with a large knife as injured people lie lifeless on the ground.
“I saw the whole thing in my mind. I saw the man running with the knife and people running away.” a cafe worker at the shopping center told the AFP news agency.
Twenty minutes after people ran out of the mall, police teams arrived on the scene and began searching the area to locate the attacker.
‘He wouldn’t have stopped’
Gunshots rang through the air and a witness saw a police officer shoot the attacker.
“If she hadn’t shot him he would have kept going, he was adrift. He had a nice big knife on him. He looked like he was on a killing spree,” he said.
People who fled warned others about the stabbings. Shoppers huddled in stores waiting for the nightmare to end. Night fell and the shopping complex was packed with police and ambulances with stretchers ready to take the injured to hospitals.
The attacker was known to the police
Photo credit: Reuters
New South Wales police did not identify the attacker but said he was a 40-year-old man known to police.
Eight people were hospitalized in Sydney, including a baby. In total, the man killed five women and one man.
“Tragically, multiple casualties have been reported and the first thoughts of all Australians are with those affected and their loved ones,” Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese wrote on X.
Police deny the attack was an act of terror and say the man acted alone.
With input from authorities
