David Gray/AFP/Getty Images
Police have sealed off the Westfield Bondi Junction shopping mall following a stabbing in Sydney on April 13, 2024.
CNN
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Australian police say five people have been killed in a mass stabbing at a busy shopping center in Sydney.
Police were called to Westfield Bondi Junction on Saturday afternoon local time after reports that multiple people had been stabbed.
The suspect, who police say acted alone, was shot and killed at the scene by a single officer.
NSW Police Deputy Commissioner Anthony Cooke said the attacker raised a knife at her and “she fired the weapon and the individual is now deceased”.
Nothing has been released about his identity or motive, but Cook said he's “not ruling anything out.”
After warning people to stay away from the area, police announced the incident was over.
Eight patients, including one child, were taken to hospitals across Sydney, New South Wales, Ambulance confirmed to CNN. They did not say whether the injured person was male or female or what his current condition was.
Videos shared on social media showed shoppers fleeing from multiple exits at the shopping center, with police helicopters heard overhead.
CNN's Australian affiliate 9News Sydney spoke to witnesses who described the situation as “chaos”, with people running through the shopping center and falling over each other.
Channel 9 was told people started running and shouting, “Don't get down, you're stabbed, you're stabbed.”
Two male witnesses told 9News they saw the baby and mother being stabbed. “The baby was stabbed, the mother was also stabbed.”
“We were holding the baby and trying to put pressure on it. So was the mother, trying to put pressure on it so the blood wouldn't stop.”
The news agency also showed live video of people being loaded into ambulances and treated at the scene.
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albenese said he had been briefed on the “catastrophic events” at Bondi Junction.
“Sadly, multiple casualties have been reported and the first thoughts of all Australians are those affected and their loved ones,” he wrote to X.
Mass casualty incidents are rare in Australia. At least four people were killed and one injured in a mass shooting in Darwin in northern Australia in 2019.
In April 1996, 35 people were killed in the Tasmanian tourist town in what became known as the Port Arthur Massacre, the deadliest mass shooting in modern Australian history.
This is breaking news and will be updated