- Four of the victims were reportedly the stabber’s own children.
- A sixth child and an adult seriously injured and hospitalized.
- Officers shot and wounded the suspect after he attacked police with a knife.
A man stabbed nine people, including five children, to death overnight in Suriname’s capital Paramaribo, police said Sunday, adding that the suspect was wounded and arrested.
The man appeared to suffer from mental health problems and four of his own children were among those killed in the attack, which took place in and around his home, according to local media reports.
The suspect had an argument with his wife on the phone before stabbing one of the victims, his 11-year-old daughter, 44 times in the kitchen of their home, local media reported.
“A man killed four adults and five children with a sharp object in a residence in Hadji Iding Soemitaweg,” local police said in a statement. “A sixth child and an adult were seriously injured and taken to the hospital, according to the statement.
The officers who arrived at the scene had to open fire on the suspect, as he “attacked the police with a sharp object,” according to the statement.
The man suffered a gunshot wound to the leg and was hospitalized under police supervision, police said without identifying him.
“More details about the true circumstances of this tragic attack will follow,” the statement concluded.
According to local media, which visited the scene of the attack and spoke to the man’s neighbors in Hadji Iding Soemitaweg, a neighborhood in the Commewijne district, the suspect had mental health problems.
Suriname’s President Jennifer Geerlings-Simons stated in response to the killings on her Facebook page.
“At a time when family and friends should stick together and support each other, we are faced with the harsh reality that there is another side to the world,” he wrote.
“A father who takes the lives of his own children and, in the process, kills his neighbors as well. I wish everyone who is grieving much strength, courage and comfort at this unimaginably difficult time.”
