An armed man attacked several passers-by with a knife on Wednesday afternoon in the northern Swiss town of Zofingen before being arrested. Six people were injured, some seriously. A pregnant woman would be among the injured, announced a local newspaper.
Some six hours after the alert was given and several hours after the arrest of the attacker, the police had still given no indication of his identity or his motivations. In a message on the social network X, the cantonal police specified that some injured people suffered serious cuts.
Around 4 p.m., the man first attacked a passer-by at the station of this town of 12,000 inhabitants, which is about sixty kilometers south of Basel and the same distance west of Zurich. He then walked and attacked several other people, apparently at random, before retreating into a house, according to the press release.
After approximately two hours, and after being contacted by a specialized team, the man was arrested by the police. Injured, he was taken to hospital, said cantonal police spokesperson Bernhard Graser.
He clarified daily Zofinger Tagblattthat the assailant had self-inflicted the injuries.
Injured pregnant woman ‘doing well’
The regional daily Aargauer Zeitung relays the testimony from a reader whose pregnant wife was allegedly attacked by the stranger “with a metal object”. Wife “was injured in the face and suffers from swelling but is doing well given the circumstances”, the husband told the newspaper. She was transported to the cantonal hospital of Aarau, about twenty kilometers from Zofingen.
Police have launched an appeal for witnesses and asked the population to send him videos and photos for the purposes of the investigation.
A major law enforcement system deployed
Images broadcast by the Aargauer Zeitung show a large deployment of police and emergency services. In particular, we can see members of the police in helmets and harnessed with bulletproof vests taking equipment from a black 4X4, handguns at their belts.
Other police officers also wearing helmets and bulletproof vests come out of a vehicle that arrives in a rush, armed with assault rifles. We also see several ambulances and a helicopter. So that the latter could land, the local football club, SC Zofingen, was forced to cancel its training sessions in order to free up the pitch, specifies the daily.