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At least one person was killed and several people wounded early Sunday in a series of stabbings in a busy nightlife area of the English city of Birmingham, the police said. They said that it was too early to determine a motive, but that they believed the events were linked.
The West Midlands Police said officers had been called to reports of a stabbing in Birmingham’s city center shortly after midnight Saturday. Two hours later, there were further reports of stabbings in the area, the police said.
The police said that at least one man had been killed and that two people, a man and a woman, had serious injuries. Five others were also wounded, though their injuries are not thought to be life-threatening, the police said.
The police declared the situation a “major incident,” a designation that describes any episode involving serious harm or a security risk to the public. A murder investigation has been opened.
“The events during the early hours of this morning are tragic, shocking and understandably frightening,” Chief Superintendent Steve Graham, an officer responsible for policing in Birmingham, said in a statement on Sunday.
“Please be assured that we are doing absolutely everything we can to find whoever was responsible and try to understand what exactly happened,” he added.
Dominic Raab, the British foreign secretary, said that anyone in the area should be “very vigilant.”
Source : Nytimes
