Norway’s coastal city of Haugesund was stunned this week by a brutal and bloody attack in broad daylight on a busy downtown street Tuesday. Local shopkeepers and passersby rushed to the victim’s aid, but then his assailant came back to stab him some more.
“It was an absolute bloodbath, it was a terrible sight,” Ina Marie Lund Skinnes, one of many witnesses to the attack told state broadcaster NRK. Others described how a man in workclothes used a hammer to try to stop the assailant from continually stabbing the man on the ground, while another man came running with a plank to do the same, and it worked. The assailant, a man in his 30s, ran off and locked himself in a nearby building. Police had to break down the door to arrest him, and he’s now charged with murder after the victim, also in his 30s, died last night at the hospital in Haugesund.
“He was one of our customers,” Ulaiwan Simonsen, who works in a local grocery store, told NRK, referring to the victim. She said his attacker “just hacked away at him, as if it wasn’t a person he was stabbing. It was so violent.”
Prosecutor Sveinung Andersen said the man charged has no prior police record. He faced a custody hearing on Thursday. Police have already interviewed several badly shaken witnesses. “Our hearts are still pumping a bit extra,” Simonsen told NRK. “We keep having flashbacks, all the time.”
newsinenglish.no staff
