At least four children have been killed in a Brazilian creche after an axe-wielding attacker scaled the wall of a nursery school and carried out a bloody rampage, authorities have confirmed.
Police say the 25-year-old man who has now been identified by local media as Luiz Henrique de Lima, headed to the pre-school in Blumenau, southern Brazil state of Santa Catarina and attacked children who were in a park at around 9am local time on Wednesday.
“Four children have been killed in an attack carried out by a 25-year-old man, Luiz Henrique de Lima, who began his bloody rampage by vaulting the wall of a nursery while armed with a hatchet and a knife,” a local media reported.
The police, in a statement, said the assailant, armed with a small axe, climbed over a wall into a crèche in Southern Brazil and killed four children, injuring five others in the attack.
The Blumenau security chief, Marcio Alberto Filippi, told reporters that the suspect later turned himself to police after the rampage.
Filippi said three boys, two aged 4 and one aged 5, and one girl aged 7 were killed in the attack.
“Four of the injured children between the ages of 3 to 5 were being treated in a hospital and were reported in stable condition, while a fifth child had minor injuries,” he said.
Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva who reacted to the horrific incident, called the attack a “monstrosity.”
“A tragedy like this is unacceptable, an absurd act of hate and cowardice … an act of violence against innocent and defenseless children,” Lula said in a Twitter post.
