Irish police reported that five people, including three young children, were transported to the hospital on Thursday due to an incident that local media indicated was a stabbing in Dublin city center.
Prime Minister Leo Varadkar stated that a suspect had been detained by police.
RTE, the national broadcaster, cited a witness at the scene who claimed to have seen a man making stabbing motions from across the road. The witness said that, upon closer inspection, she saw that two children had been stabbed.
According to Anthony Boyle, a 31-year-old IT consultant who resides on the street, there was chaos at the scene. “I saw a child on the ground, a little girl,” he told Reuters. “There was complete and utter pandemonium, women wailing, men screaming and crying.”
Boyle added that he saw a man lying on his side but did not witness the events leading up to the incident.
Police disclosed that one girl sustained serious injuries, while the other two children are being treated for less severe injuries. An adult female is also being treated for serious injuries, and an adult male has sustained less serious injuries.
Reports from local media revealed that the stabbing occurred on Dublin’s Parnell Square, located next to the city’s main thoroughfare of O’Connell Street. Around 20 officers were on the scene, which police said remained sealed off.
“We are all shocked by the incident which has taken place in Parnell Square,” Varadkar said in a statement.
The Irish Times indicated that the detained suspect had sustained self-inflicted wounds and that early indications suggested a man attempted to attack several young people, with passersby intervening.
The motive for the attack, which took place near a school on the street, has not yet been determined, added the Irish Times.
(Reporting by Padraic Halpin and Conor Humphries; editing by William James, Alexandra Hudson)
