U.K. police quizzed a 17-year-old suspect Tuesday over the likely motive behind a knife attack that killed two children and left six in critical condition a day earlier.
A total of nine children and two adults were hurt in the rampage in Southport, northwest England. Both adults and six of the children were in critical condition in local hospitals.
“We believe the adults who were injured were bravely trying to protect the children who were being attacked,” Merseyside Police Chief Constable Serena Kennedy said.
Local people left flowers and stuffed animals in tribute at a police cordon on the street lined with brick houses in the seaside resort near Liverpool – nicknamed “sunny Southport” – whose beach and pier attract vacationers from across northwest England.
Witnesses described scenes “from a horror movie” as bloodied children ran from the attack just before noon Monday.
The suspect was arrested soon after on suspicion of murder and attempted murder. Police said he was born in Cardiff, Wales and had lived for years in a village about 5 kilometers (3 miles) from Southport. He has not yet been charged.
Police said detectives are not treating Monday’s attack as terror-related and they are not looking for any other suspects.
It is the latest shocking attack in a country where a recent rise in knife crime has stoked anxieties and led to calls for the government to do more to clamp down on bladed weapons.
Witnesses described hearing screams and seeing children covered in blood emerging from the Hart Space, a community center that hosts everything from pregnancy workshops and meditation sessions to women’s boot camps.
The attack happened during a Taylor Swift-themed yoga and dance workshop for children aged about 6 to 11.
“They were in the road, running from the nursery,” said Bare Varathan, who owns a shop nearby. “They had been stabbed, here, here, here, everywhere,” he said, indicating the neck, back and chest.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer called the attack “horrendous and deeply shocking.” King Charles III sent his “condolences, prayers and deepest sympathies” to those affected by the “utterly horrific incident.”
Prince William and his wife Catherine said that “as parents, we cannot begin to imagine what the families, friends and loved ones of those killed and injured in Southport today are going through.”
Britain’s worst attack on children occurred in 1996, when 43-year-old Thomas Hamilton shot 16 kindergarteners and their teacher dead in a school gymnasium in Dunblane, Scotland. The U.K. subsequently banned the private ownership of almost all handguns.
Mass shootings and killings with firearms are rare in Britain, where knives were used in about 40% of homicides in the year to March 2023.
