The Albany Gazette - What we know about the UK train stabbings

Here's what we know so far:

What happened?

Police were alerted to an emergency on board a train between Doncaster, a town in northeast England, and London's King's Cross Station -- a typically busy route -- at around 7:40 pm (1940 GMT) on Saturday night.

The train was stopped at Huntingdon station in Cambridgeshire, where armed officers backed by police cars, a fleet of ambulances and two air ambulances swarmed the station in the eastern England market town.

"Police boarded the train and arrested two people within eight minutes of the first 999 call," Superintendent John Loveless from the British Transport Police told reporters at a briefing on Sunday.

While 10 people were initially taken to hospital, four were later discharged. Two people remained in a life-threatening condition on Sunday morning.

What the witnesses saw

Witnesses on board the train have described scenes of chaos and horror as an attacker with a large knife stabbed passengers on board.

Witness Olly Foster told the BBC that he heard people shouting "run, run, there's a guy literally stabbing everyone," and initially thought it was a Halloween-related prank.

But passengers then started pushing through the carriage, Foster said, adding that his hand was left "covered in blood" that had spilled onto the chair he had been leaning on.

Foster said he saw an older man block the assailant from stabbing a younger girl, adding the attack "felt like forever" though it lasted only minutes.

A witness told The Times newspaper there was "blood everywhere" as people hid in the washrooms.

Others told Sky News they saw a man holding a large knife on the platform after the train halted. They then saw the man tasered and restrained by police.

Those arrested

Police arrested two British nationals on suspicion of attempted murder at the scene.

The suspects held in custody were "a 32-year-old man, a Black British national, and a 35-year-old man, a British national of Caribbean descent," Loveless said.

Police declared it a "major incident" on Saturday.

"At this stage, there is nothing to suggest this is a terrorist incident," Loveless said Sunday.

Police were still investigating the motive behind the incident.

Huntingdon station remained closed and cordoned off to the public on Sunday, with the train, now a crime scene, still standing at the platform, which was empty bar police and forensic officers.

Police and interior minister Shabana Mahmood underlined that both suspects were born in the UK, following speculation on social media fuelled by rising anti-immigration sentiment in the UK.

Recent attacks have seen the rapid spread of misinformation about the identity of the perpetrators, with several social media accounts quickly blaming such events on immigrants or asylum seekers.

Prime Minister Keir Starmer said the "appalling" incident was "deeply concerning".

King Charles III and his wife Queen Camilla said on Sunday they were "truly appalled and shocked" by the attack.

London North Eastern Railway, which operates along the route, urged customers not to travel on Sunday due to ongoing disruptions, saying services may be cancelled at short notice.

"Passengers will see a high visibility presence of police officers at stations and on trains throughout today," Loveless said.

Knife crime in the UK

Knife crime in England and Wales has increased since 2011, according to official government data.

While Britain has some of the strictest gun controls in the world, rampant knife crime has been branded a "national crisis" by Starmer.

His Labour government has tried to rein in their use.

A series of high-profile knife attacks have shaken the country in the last year, including the murder of three girls at a dance class in Southport in July 2024, one of the country's worst mass stabbings in years.

Two people were killed -- one as a result of misdirected police gunfire -- and others wounded in a stabbing spree at a synagogue in Manchester at the start of October.

And a man appeared in a London court on Thursday, charged with murder after a stabbing attack in broad daylight, which left one dead and two injured.

(O.Robinson--TAG)