Witnesses have described the carnage that unfolded at a Sydney mall on Saturday 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 mother of the baby, who was also stabbed, was holding the baby as it was taken to an ambulance, Reese Colmenares, a witness, told news agency Reuters.
Ms Colmenares was one of the 20 people who hid in a nearby hardware store when she saw people screaming and running out of the Westfield Bondi Junction mall complex.
"It's scary, there are little children and elderly and people in wheelchairs everywhere," she said.
"Saw him running with knife"
Photo Credit: AFP
Pranjul Bokaria, was returning from work when the rampage began. As police swarmed the area, chaos descended as shoppers ran for their lives and hid inside nearby stores. She escaped using an emergency exit and took shelter in a back room.
"I am alive and grateful," she told news agency AFP.
CCTV cameras inside the mall show a man in an Australian rugby league jersey running around the shopping centre with a large knife as injured people lay lifeless on the floor.
"I saw the whole thing in front of me. I saw the guy running with the knife and people running away." a cafe worker inside the shopping centre told news agency AFP.
Twenty minutes after the people rushed out of the mall, police teams entered the scene and started sweeping the area to locate the attacker.
"He would not have stopped"
Photo Credit: AFP
Gunshots rang through the air and one witness saw a police officer shoot the attacker.
"If she did not shoot him, he would have kept going, he was on the rampage. He had a nice, big blade on him. He looked like he was on a killing spree," he said.
People who fled alerted others about the stabbings. Shoppers huddled together inside shops 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.
Attacker was known to law enforcement
Photo Credit: Reuters
New South Wales police did not identify the attacker but said that he was a 40-year-old man who was known to law enforcement.
Eight people were hospitalised across 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 PM Anthony Albanese wrote on X.
Police have denied that the attack was an act of terrorism, saying that the man acted alone.
With agency inputs
