Five persons were stabbed in downtown Oslo on Thursday afternoon. A police van had been taken into use as an ambulance to move victims to hospital.
The attacks took place around Grønlandsleiret 5, just a few blocks from the main police station in Oslo.
"The man used a kitchen knife with a 30 centimer (12-inch) blade and stabbed several people with it. He gave it to one of the ten or so people standing around outside the youth club before disappearing from the scene with three other people," an eyewitness told Aftenposten.no. The eyewitness estimated the perpetrator to be about 30-35 years old.
Four of the victims had been taken to Ullevål Hospital. The seriousness of their injuries was not yet officially known to police. A fifth person was being treated for minor cut wounds at Oslo's downtown emergency ward.
One person was being held at the emergency ward on suspicion of a connection with the incident. He arrived there with blood on his shirt but was unharmed.
"All of the persons involved are both victims and suspects in the case," said Britt Homb-Døviken, operations leader at Oslo police headquarters.
The assailant is still at large.
"All available officers in Oslo are now looking for a man in a green T-shirt. We have no idea where he is," said field operations leader Anette Gultvedt.
Police have received information that the stabbings were related to a dispute at a Kurdish youth club in Grønlandsleiret. There were signs of a brawl at the scene and a large kitchen knife was reportedly used in the attacks.
"Ten to twelve men at Grønlandsleieret were getting ready to fight. It looked like they were divided into two groups. Two persons were bleeding from the head and one had his shirt torn. One of the men had a large kitchen knife in his hand," said NTB news agency journalist Audun Kolstad Wiig.
Eyewitness Wiig estimated that the men in the group were between the ages of 25-50. The man with the knife fled towards central Oslo with one other man, Wiig said.
Aftenposten's reporter said that the sidewalk outside the Kurdish youth club was splattered with blood.
The victims were found in two locations, the youth club, and near the central bus station several blocks away. The injured had been driven away from the bus station in a police van after the attacks.
Source: Aftenposten (English)
The new-found right to vote at October's local elections has failed to excite Belgium's foreign residents, who have stayed away from registration centres in droves.
Less than a week before the deadline, just 2,338 non-EU nationals living in Flanders have registered to vote. That represents just 5.48 percent of the target population.
Left-wing Spirit Senator Fouzaya Talhaoui said the figures were "miserable" and accused the government of taking insufficient action by failing to invest in information campaigns.
On a local level, she said cities with Socialist SP.A mayors made some efforts to address foreign residents, but cities with Liberal VLD mayors deliberately opted against urging foreigners to vote.
But Flemish VLD Interior Minister Marino Keulen rejected the criticism, claiming that foreign residents are simply disinterested in voting, newspaper 'De Standaard' reported on Tuesday.
He said in Wallonia — where an active government information campaign was waged — the registration drive also met with little success.
The federal Parliament approved at the start of 2004 legislation granting non-EU nationals who have lived in Belgium for five years the right to vote once they have registered with electoral authorities.
Among the Flemish parties, only the Socialists and Spirit supported the controversial legislation. The green party Groen! was not represented in the federal parliament.
But the registration figures have disappointed. Leuven and Ghent have performed best with 10 percent of eligible foreign voters registering. Antwerp came in second with 6 percent.
Municipalities such as Mechelen,Oostende and Sint-Niklaas recorded zero percent, while in Genk, the 3 percent figure was also disappointing
Source: Expatica (English)
