- Written by Kathryn Armstrong
- BBC news
Authorities are investigating the motive in both unrelated incidents.
Vienna police are investigating the deaths of four women and a teenage girl within 24 hours.
Three women were stabbed to death by a man in a brothel in the Austrian capital on Friday. The suspect was arrested.
Another woman and her daughter were also killed in an unrelated incident. Investigators believe the crime was committed by the girl's father.
Campaigners described the day as “Black Friday” and called for urgent action to stop violence against women.
The bodies of three women were found inside a building in the central Brigittenau district at around 9:00 pm local time (8:00 pm Japan time) after a witness reported the incident.
Police said the suspect, a 27-year-old Afghan national, was found hiding near the brothel with a knife in his hand.
The motive for the killing is unknown at this time, but the man is under investigation.
Early Friday morning, a 51-year-old woman and her 13-year-old daughter were found dead in an apartment in the Erdberg district, about 12 kilometers from where another incident occurred.
There is no suggestion that they are connected.
Police suspect that her husband, who is also the woman's father, may have killed her by strangling or suffocating her, and are still investigating.
“The ongoing initial investigation indicates that blunt force violence was involved,” police spokesman Philip Haslinger said in a statement.
Eva Maria Holzleitner, head of the women's policy division of the opposition Social Democratic Party (SPO), called on the federal government to convene a crisis conference to discuss the issue of femicide in the country.
“We mourn the murdered women, we remember the survivors, and we call for the final implementation of the National Action Plan for Protection from Violence to protect the lives of Austrian women.” Holzleitner said.
“This day will go down in history as the Black Friday where five women died,” Claudia Frieben, leader of the umbrella group Austria Women's Ring (OFR), wrote on X (formerly Twitter).
Some 319 women were murdered in Austria between 2010 and 2020, most by their male partners or ex-partners, according to the latest data on Austria's female homicide rate published by the Institute for Conflict Studies.
The coalition government has pledged to crack down on the problem, pledging almost €25m (about £21m) in 2021 to initiatives aimed at protecting women from violence.
