'A man is stabbing people': At least 13 hurt in stabbing spree in Seoul mall

SEOUL – At least 13 people were injured in what local news outlets are reporting as a mass stabbing at a mall near a subway station in an affluent suburb south of Seoul in South Korea.

The incident happened at around 6pm on Thursday at AK Plaza near Seohyeon station in Bundang ward, Seongnam, according to initial accounts by Yonhap News.

Emergency responders received a call saying “a man is stabbing people”, it said.

JoongAng Daily reported that one suspect had been arrested, and police were looking for another one.

Accounts on social media also mentioned a car crashing into a pavement, and two men jumping out to rush towards the mall.

Yonhap said four people were injured as the car ploughed through a pedestrian walkway, while nine were stabbed at the mall.

Witnesses at the scene said one suspect, wearing black clothing and sunglasses, had a knife that was around 50cm to 60cm long.

“At first, I thought it was a hide-and-seek game by some of the scouts (from a World Jamboree event). But when I entered the mall, there was blood,” said a Twitter account cited by JoongAng Daily.

Another Twitter user, @rucking736, said: “It’s really, really, really crazy. It’s a place where a lot of people go, not just students.”

The motive for the attack remained unclear, but News1 quoted Commissioner-General Yoon Hee Keun, South Korea’s police chief, as saying the incident was being treated as a terrorist act.

Thursday’s attack came just two weeks after one person was killed and three more wounded when a man went on a “stabbing rampage” near Sillim subway station in Seoul.

South Korea is typically an extremely safe country, with a murder rate of just 1.3 per 100,000 people in 2021, according to official statistics.

By comparison, the United States has 7.8 homicide deaths per 100,000 people.

This article was first published in The Straits Times. Permission required for reproduction.