Five people have been injured in a “mass stabbing” in the centre of Dutch capital Amsterdam, police have said.
The attack happened shortly after 2.30pm GMT – with dozens of police cars descending on the city’s iconic Dam Square just minutes later.
On Thursday evening, police said two Americans – a 67-year-old woman and 69-year-old man – one Polish man, 26, one Belgian woman, 73, and one 19-year-old woman from Amsterdam had all suffered injuries.
On the knifeman himself, police said: “With the help of bystanders, officers overpowered and arrested a suspect on Gravenstraat shortly after the incident.
The suspect himself was also injured on his leg. He was transported to hospital. What the trigger or motive was is unclear at the moment and is being investigated.
“The police are taking into account the scenario that the suspect randomly targeted victims. With what motive is unclear.”
Images from local TV channel AT5 shortly after the attack showed an air ambulance landing in the square – just metres from Sint Nicolaasstraat, where police said the stabbing occurred.
Images from local TV channel AT5 show an air ambulance landing in Dam Square
AT5
A police cordon has been put in place in Dam Square
GETTY
MAPPED: Where did Thursday’s stabbings take place?
GB NEWS
Ambulances were seen tending to those injured in the ‘mass stabbing’
GETTY
Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf was told by one young woman that “that’s happening everywhere now, just look at Germany,” in reference to a recent spate of terrorist attacks across Europe.
Though police maintain that they have not yet established a motive, the stabbing does follow a number of high-profile incidents across the continent.
Amsterdam Mayor Femke Halsema, Chief Prosecutor Rene de Beukelaer and Police Chief Peter Holla have all attended an emergency briefing following the attacks, a spokesman for the mayor said.
Halsema had to be removed from a city council meeting in Amsterdam’s town hall, which sits on Dam Square itself, shortly after the stabbings.
However, the Netherlands’s Prime Minister Dick Schoof is not in the country, having travelled to Paris for talks with European leaders including British counterpart Sir Keir Starmer.
