Annecy stabbings: Children including British girl remain in intensive care after France playground attack

Two of four children in ‘critical’ condition after knife attack by Syrian refugee in Lake Annecy in the Alps on Thursday
Supplied
Peter Allen9 June 2023

Four children including a British girl remained in intensive care on Friday following a series of savage knife attacks by a Syrian refugee in eastern France.

Abdelmasih Hanoun, 31, faces  attempted murder charges following the assaults by Lake Annecy, in the Alps, on Thursday morning.

He first targeted two French cousins named as Ennio and Alba, both two, and then attacked Ettie, a three-year-old English girl on holiday with her parents, and Peter, a 22-month-old Dutch boy.

On Friday, Ennio and Alba remained in hospital in the nearby city of Grenoble, where their condition was described as “critical”.

Ettie was in the same hospital and her condition was “stable” while Peter was also “stable” having been transferred to a specialist medical unit in Geneva.

Line Bonnet-Mathis, the Annecy Prosecutor who is leading the investigation into the crimes, said: “We are dealing with very young victims whose state of health is still extremely fragile. All are in intensive care.”

Two adults were also slashed with a knife by Hanoun – Manuel, 70, and Yusuf, 78, who was also hit by police bullet in error.

Hanoun himself was also treated after being shot by police before his arrest, but was still well enough to talk to officers.

He described himself as a ‘Syrian-Christian’, who was filmed saying ‘In the name of Jesus Christ’ throughout the attack, said an investigating source.

FRANCE-CRIME-ATTACK
A youth lights candles at a playground in the "Jardins de l'Europe" in Annecy, in the French Alps, on June 8, 2023, following a mass stabbing
AFP via Getty Images

The divorced father of a three-year-old girl was refused asylum in France six days ago and faced being deported.

Despite this, he had been sleeping rough in Annecy, with no attempt by the authorities to monitor his movements.

Gérald Darmanin, France’s interior minister, said this was a ‘troubling coincidence’, adding: “For reasons not well explained he had sought asylum in Switzerland, Italy and France.”

Hanoun arrived in Sweden 10 years ago, having served in the Syrian Army during the country’s ongoing civil war.

He married a Swedish woman he had met in Turkey, and they went on to have a daughter, now aged three, before the couple separated around eight months ago.

Hanoun was twice refused Swedish citizenship, and this is thought to have motivated him to move to France alone.

The multiple stabbings follow a series of similar crimes in France dating back to 2015, most of them linked to Islamist terrorism.

There were no early indications as to the motive of the latest attack, said Ms Bonet-Mathis.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in