One dead and one injured after rampage with two knives in Rotterdam, investigations ongoing

A man armed with “two knives” stabbed one person and seriously injured another in a horror attack in the Dutch port city of Rotterdam on Thursday, September 19, police said. The suspect, who was also injured, was taken into police custody.

Police spokesman Wessel Stolle said that investigations into the knife attack near the famous Erasmus Bridge were ongoing. He added that there was no clear picture of the motive, but that “all possible scenarios” were being investigated.

Local media, citing eyewitnesses, claimed that a man attacked people with two sharp knives while shouting “Allahu Akbar,” the Arabic phrase meaning “God is great.” Stolled claimed that local police also heard the phrase and that it was “part of the investigation.”

Heroic spectator comes to the rescue

A physical education teacher who was teaching a class near the Erasmus Bridge, where the stabbing took place, claimed that he managed to overpower the attacker.

“I saw a man with two long knives stabbing a young man,” he said. “It was a man with two long knives stabbing another young man and when I started screaming, he turned around and started walking towards everyone standing around him. Eventually I managed to lure them away.”