Czech Republic: Teenager arrested after fatal knife attack on two women

Czech police near a police cordon in front of an Action discount shop in Hradec Kralove, Czech Republic, where in the morning a teenager killed two women in a knife attack. Photo / AFP

A 16-year-old boy has killed two women in a knife attack at a discount shop in the Czech Republic with police saying the motive remained unclear.

Police arrested the teenager, a Czech national, 10 minutes after Thursday’s attack at an Action branch on the outskirts of Hradec Kralove, about 100km east of Prague.

“Both of those attacked suffered injuries which were so serious that they could not be saved despite all efforts of the rescuers,” police said on X.

Police spokeswoman Iva Kormosova said the teenager, a Hradec Kralove resident, attacked a shop assistant and a service area worker.

The women were aged 19 and 38.

The attacker’s motive was unclear but that there was nothing to indicate a terror attack, police said.

“The information we have for now seems to suggest he chose the victims randomly,” they added.

Police said later on Thursday they had charged the attacker with double murder.

He is facing up to 10 years in prison if convicted, given his age.

Rescuers received the first call about 7.30am GMT, half an hour after the shop opened.

“When we arrived, we found two people stabbed,” Anatolij Truhlar, head doctor of the local air rescue service, told the private CNN Prima News TV channel.

“Unfortunately, despite 40 minutes of resuscitation efforts, both persons died,” he added.

Witnesses told the public Czech TV there were about a dozen people inside the shop when the attacker hit.

Police found a knife with a 20cm blade near the shop.

The attacker was detained by a specialised police unit about 1km from the shop.

Police were deployed outside the store where a lone candle flickered, and part of an adjacent carpark was closed with police tape until Thursday afternoon.

“I think you’re not safe anywhere, given what’s going on around us,” passer-by Adela Ptackova told AFP.

Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala expressed condolences to the families of the victims, calling the murders “an incomprehensible, horrendous act”.

Attacks in public are rare in the Czech Republic, an EU and Nato member of 10.9 million people, but in 2023 a student killed 14 people and wounded 25 in a shooting rampage at a Prague university.

Meanwhile, the Czech Republic’s southern neighbour Austria is reeling from the murder of a teenager in a knife attack by a Syrian asylum seeker in the city of Villach at the weekend.

And eastern neighbour Slovakia was rocked by a double murder at a school where an 18-year-old student killed his fellow student and a deputy headmistress in another knife attack in January.

-Agence France-Presse