From Times OnlineJanuary 23, 2009
Babies and adult killed in knife attack at Belgian nursery
( Yves Herman/Reuters)
Adults were injured as they tried to put themselves between the attacker and the children
David Charter in Dendermonde, Belgium
A crazed knife attacker, his eyes blackened and his face painted white, tricked his way into a children’s day care centre and killed two babies and a female childminder in a stabbing spree which left ten more youngsters injured with slash wounds today.
The assailant, thought to be a psychiatric patient, was said by police to have sought out the youngest among the 21 children aged one to three who were being looked after at the 'Storyland' crèche.
Three more female members of staff were hacked in the arms and legs by the knifeman as they heroically tried to defend the toddlers, some of whom had been sleeping in cots when the frenzied attack began.
The man, aged around 25, was last night being held by Belgian police who caught him at a nearby supermarket about an hour-and-a-half after he began his murderous rampage in the sleepy town of Dendermonde, 20 miles north-west of Brussels.
The guy just went crazy,” said Theo Janssens, the deputy mayor. “There was blood everywhere, it was unbelievable, real carnage.” With tears streaming from his eyes, he added: “He went straight for the babies and attacked them. The smallest ones were in their beds, they were probably asleep. The two who were killed were just babies.” The latest gruesome child murder to blight Belgium began at around 10am when the doorbell rang at the Fabeltjesland nursery in the St Gillis suburb of this 42,000-strong town.
It is not clear whether the visitor could be seen before he had talked his way in, reportedly by insisting that he had a message to deliver to someone. Witnesses described him as unusually tall and thin, with ginger hair and his face painted white with the eyes blackened out, possibly also wearing a bullet-proof vest.
The assailant immediately made for the youngest children as the all-female staff tried valiantly to protect them. One child and one adult died at the scene and another baby died later in hospital.
The man fled by bicycle and was arrested by police either in or near a nearby supermarket. He was reportedly wounded during his arrest. He is said not to have any known connection with the daycare centre.
“An act of great brutality has happened here against our weakest citizens,” said Buyse Piet, the mayor. “The whole city is united in support for the parents who are in deep grief.” Parents ran sobbing through the streets to the crèche as word spread of the attack and the air was filled with ambulance sirens and the clatter of search helicopters.
It took around half-an-hour for the first of a fleet of ambulances to reach the scene and begin ferrying the wounded to several hospitals where doctors performed at least ten operations.
Christian Du Four, the local prosecutor, added: “He quickly pulled out a knife and started using it on the children. He then went up to another floor and started doing the same thing again.”
Damien Vernon, a 43-year-old from Ireland who has lived in Dendermonde for five years, said: “It is just a sad day here, we are a small town and the crime figures are low here. We are just in shock.”
Dr Ignace Demeyer, director of Aalst hospital six miles away, said that ten children and two adults arrived with serious stab wounds, all requiring surgery, and that all were now in a stable condition. He said that the attack was very violent and that the children had multiple stab wounds all over their bodies.
Mr Demeyer added that 21 children were at the daycare centre at the time of the attack and nine were unharmed.
The town used a nearby community centre to provide psychological counselling to victims and witnesses of the stabbings, while parents gathered in the town hall.
It is the latest in a string of gruesome child murders in Belgium, where the paedophile Marc Dutroux killed four girls in the 1990s and Genevieve Lhermitte cut the throats of all her five children last year.
Re: It doesn't get any sicker then this.
Originally Posted by rvg
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