Sydney shopping centre attack: Death toll climbs to six

A crowd gathers outside Westfield Shopping Centre in Sydney, Saturday, April 13, 2024. ©Rick Rycroft/Copyright 2024 The AP. All rights reserved.

Multiple people were stabbed on Saturday, and police shot someone, at a busy Sydney shopping centre, media reports said.

ABC TV in Australia reported Saturday that police evacuated shoppers at Westfield Shopping Centre in Bondi Junction, which is in the city's eastern suburbs. A New South Wales ambulance spokesperson said that one of two alleged offenders had been shot by police and they were searching for the other, ABC reported. The spokesperson said people were still inside the shopping centre.

The Sydney Morning Herald reported that four people died in a stabbing. Police couldn’t be immediately reached to confirm the report. The newspaper said one person was also shot, but it wasn’t clear if the person had died.

Video showed many ambulances and police cars around the shopping centre, and people streaming out. ABC reported that armed police were searching a rooftop parking lot.

Paramedics were treating patients at the scene.

Witness Roi Huberman, an ABC sound engineer, told the network that he sheltered in a store during the incident.

“And suddenly we heard a shot or maybe two shots and we didn’t know what to do,” he said. “Then the very capable person in the store took us to the back where it can be locked. She then locked the store and then she then let us through the back and now we are out.”

© Euronews