A terror strike in the heart of France has been reported, with a 75-year-old pensioner getting his his throat slit right outside a Church in Montpellier city by an unidentified knifeman who is on the run. The wounded man was taken to the hospital by first responders and the man is in critical condition battling death. A leading publication in the country, actu.fr, revealed that he suffers from a "deep wound to the neck."
The man was reportedly cut in the carotid artery, the main vessel that supplies blood to the head. The police perimeter has been setup around the crime scene at Saint-Come and Saint-Roch Church and the man was found on Rue de l'Ancien Courrier in l'Ecusson. There was a pool of blood visible on the wall and on the floor.
President Emmanuel Macron is yet to give a statement regarding the attack and the police have set out for a massive manhunt to nab the terrorist behind the plot. However, the motive or person behind the attack is not yet clear. The attack on the man comes just hours after four women were stabbed during a St Patrick's Day celebration in Belfast, Northern Ireland. The police are also looking if the two incidents were planned together.
France Has Been Rocked By A Spate of Terror Attacks
In just a matter of two years, France has seen a rise in terror attacks through knife-stabbings and beheadings and just a few months ago in October, 2020, three people died in an attack at the Notre Dame Basilica in Nice. All the three victims were killed inside the Basilica before the first Mass of the day. Among the three, one elderly victim was completely beheaded. The police went on a manhunt and shot and detained the suspect.
Just two weeks prior to the Church attacks, history teacher Samuel Paty, 47, was beheaded in broad daylight at the centre of a street outside the high school he teaches simply because he showed his students caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad during a discussion on free speech. Paty worked at the Conflans-Sainte-Honorine college, north-west of Paris.
