A nine-year-old girl has become the third child to die following a stabbing rampage at a Taylor Swift-themed dance class in the UK.
Two other girls, aged six and seven, were killed in the attack in northwest England on Monday.
British police arrested a 17-year-old boy and are working to understand what motivated the attack that also left 10 people — including eight other children — injured in Southport. Six children remain in a critical condition.
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On Tuesday, Taylor Swift said she was “completely in shock” and was still taking in “the horror” of the event.
“The loss of life and innocence, and the horrendous trauma inflicted on everyone who was there, the families, and first responders,” she wrote on Instagram.
“These were just little kids at a dance class.
“I am at a complete loss for how to ever convey my sympathies to these families.”
Merseyside Police Chief Constable Serena Kennedy said it appeared two teachers were injured while bravely trying to protect children in the class.
Locals left flowers and stuffed animals in tribute at a police cordon on the street lined with brick houses in the seaside resort near Liverpool — nicknamed “sunny Southport” — where the beach and pier attract holidaymakers.
Witnesses described scenes “from a horror movie” as bloodied children ran from the attack just before noon on Monday.
The suspect was arrested soon after on suspicion of murder and attempted murder.
Police said he was born in Cardiff, Wales, and had lived for years in a village about 5km from Southport. He has not yet been charged.
Police said detectives are not treating Monday’s attack as terror-related and they are not looking for any other suspects.
It is the latest shocking attack in a country where a recent rise in knife crime has stoked anxieties and led to calls for the government to do more to clamp down on bladed weapons.
Witnesses described hearing screams and seeing children covered in blood emerging from the Hart Space, a community centre that hosts everything from pregnancy workshops and meditation sessions to women’s boot camps.
The attack happened during the yoga and dance workshop for children aged about six to 11.
“They were in the road, running from the nursery,” said Bare Varathan, who owns a shop nearby. “They had been stabbed, here, here, here, everywhere,” he said, indicating the neck, back and chest.
‘Deeply shocking’
Prime Minister Keir Starmer called the attack “horrendous and deeply shocking”.
King Charles sent his “condolences, prayers and deepest sympathies” to those affected by the “utterly horrific incident”.
Prince William and his wife Catherine said that “as parents, we cannot begin to imagine what the families, friends and loved ones of those killed and injured in Southport today are going through”.
Britain’s worst attack on children occurred in 1996, when 43-year-old Thomas Hamilton shot 16 kindergarteners and their teacher dead in a school gymnasium in Dunblane, Scotland. The UK subsequently banned the private ownership of almost all handguns.
Mass shootings and killings with firearms are rare in Britain, where knives were used in about 40 per cent of homicides in the year to March 2023.
– with AAP, AP and PA