A priest has died and four other people have been injured after a knife attack at a Benedictine abbey in Jaroslaw, southern Poland. The suspected attacker, a 31-year-old Ukrainian national, has been arrested.
Prosecutor Bozena Harasz-Woloszyn said the man had entered Poland from Germany earlier that day and had taken the knife from a kitchen on the premises.
He allegedly attacked four men and one woman at the Benedictine Sisters monastery on the abbey grounds, including a priest who was in a confessional. Three of the victims were clergy members and two were laypeople.
“One person has died,” Ms Harasz-Woloszyn, from the District Prosecutor’s Office in Przemysl, said. Two of those injured were in a critical, life-threatening condition, she added.
The motive for the attack was not immediately clear, while police remained at the scene investigating.
Sister Barbara Dendor told state broadcaster TVP Info that Father Stanislaw had died and Father Marek was in serious condition. “When I arrived, there was total panic,” she said.
Jaroslaw mayor Marcin Nazarewicz said a period of mourning would be observed in the city until the end of the week.
