One person was killed and three others injured in a stabbing attack by a man near a subway station in the South Korean capital Seoul on Friday, police told AFP, in a country where such incidents are rare.
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The attack happened near the Sillim subway station in southwest Seoul, police said, adding they arrested the suspect at the scene.
“The suspect is a man in his 30s who was apparently not under the influence of alcohol. We are in the process of questioning him about the motive for his crime,” the police said.
According to footage from local television YTN, rescuers in orange outfits and stretchers were at the scene when police cordoned off the area.
“The man screamed that he didn’t want to live anymore when he was arrested by the police,” YTN reported.
Other footage aired on YTN apparently showed police arresting the suspect. Apparently passive, sitting on steps, as armed police approached him and took him into custody.
“People ran into my store and told me that a man was stabbing people with a big knife. We locked the door,” a neighborhood trader told YTN.
Witnesses said the suspect repeatedly stabbed a man in the back over the phone before fleeing and attacking others, the Chosun Ilbo newspaper reported.
AFP
“The four victims are believed to be male,” the newspaper added.
This attack quickly became the subject of discussion on Korean-language social networks.
“Don’t come to Sillim now. “I called the police after seeing an injured person on the ground,” warned a user on Twitter using the alias sanong_cos.
Local media reported that earlier this year in the southern city of Busan, a 23-year-old TV drama fanatic stabbed a woman he met online.
In March, a 37-year-old woman was charged with stabbing three people on the subway, apparently after being called “ajumma,” a term for a middle-aged woman.
Last year, a man stabbed a former colleague in a subway station after years of stalking her. He was subsequently sentenced to several decades in prison.
Despite these isolated attacks, South Korea is generally considered an extremely safe country, with a homicide rate of just 1.3 per 100,000 people in 2021, according to official statistics.