West News Wire: Four young children were killed in an assault on a daycare center in southern Brazil by a man carrying a small axe. Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva called the tragedy a “monstrosity.”
A 25-year-old man attacked a private daycare on Wednesday in Blumenau, a community in the state of Santa Catarina, by scaling its wall. According to the neighborhood Hospital Santo Antonio, once inside, he killed four kids who were thought to be between the ages of four and seven and wounded a number of others.
A catastrophe like this is unacceptable; it is a senseless act of cowardice and hatred. a violent deed committed against defenseless, innocent children,” President Lula wrote on Twitter.
Police say that the attacker has been arrested. The event takes place more than a week after a 13-year-old student carried out a stabbing attack in a Sao Paulo school that killed a teacher and left five others wounded.
The attack is the second of its kind to occur in Santa Catarina, where a suspect wielding a knife killed three small children and two adults at a daycare centre in 2021.
According to a report from researchers led by Daniel Cara, an education professor at the University of Sao Paulo, 16 attacks or violent episodes happened in schools between 2000 and 2022.
“There is no greater pain than that of a family who loses its children or grandchildren, even more so in an act of violence against innocent and defenseless kids,” Lula wrote Wednesday on Twitter.
“My thoughts and prayers are the families of victims and the community of Blumenau in the face of the monstrosity of what occurred.”
