Man kills four children in axe attack at Brazilian daycare
The attack took place in the southern state of Santa Catarina in Brazil, leaving several children dead and injured.
A man armed with a small ax attacked a nursery in southern Brazil, killing four young children in a tragedy that Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva called a “monstrosity”.
The attack took place on Wednesday when a 25-year-old man climbed the wall of a private day care center in Blumenau, a town in the state of Santa Catarina. Once inside, according to the local Hospital Santo Antonio, he killed four children estimated to be between the ages of four and seven and injured several others.
“A tragedy like this is unacceptable, an absurd act of hatred and cowardice… an act of violence against innocent and defenseless children,” President Lula said in a Twitter post.
Police say the attacker has been arrested. The event comes more than a week after a 13-year-old student carried out a stabbing attack at a school in Sao Paulo that left a teacher dead and five others injured.
Details of the number of children injured in Wednesday’s attack remain uncertain. The Associated Press said five injured children had been taken to hospital, Blumenau mayor Mario Hildebrandt said.
The Reuters and AFP news agencies, meanwhile, reported four children were injured, citing Hospital Santo Antonio and local officials respectively.
Images on TV channels show parents sobbing outside the Cantinho do Bom Pastor daycare center. A police detective told television reporters that investigators would look for a possible motive.
Hildebrandt said classes had been suspended and the city would declare a period of mourning.
The attack is the second of its kind in Santa Catarina, where a knife-wielding suspect killed three small children and two adults at a daycare center in 2021.
According to a report by researchers led by Daniel Cara, an education professor at the University of Sao Paulo, 16 attacks or violent episodes occurred in schools between 2000 and 2022.
“There is no greater pain than that of a family losing its children or grandchildren, and even more so in an act of violence against innocent and defenseless children,” Lula wrote on Twitter on Wednesday.
“My thoughts and prayers are with the families of the victims and the community of Blumenau in light of the monstrosity of what happened.”