Terrified Rohingya Muslims await chance to enter Bangladesh

The scene has played out with heartbreaking regularity as hundreds of thousands of Rohingya Muslims have fled persecution in Myanmar and escaped to neighboring Bangladesh: terrified knots of men, women and children crossing the swollen Naf river and waiting along the border for permission to cross.

A Rohingya child sleeps inside a basket in which he was carried as a group of Rohingya fled Myanmar into Bangladesh, near Palong Khali, Bangladesh, Wednesday, Nov. 1, 2017.  (AP Photo/Bernat Armangue)

Rohingya Muslims cross over the border into Bangladesh from Myanmar, near Palong Khali, Bangladesh, Wednesday, Nov. 1, 2017. (AP Photo/Bernat Armangue)

A Rohingya Muslim helps an elderly as they cross over from Myanmar into Bangladesh, near Palong Khali, Bangladesh, Wednesday, Nov. 1, 2017.  (AP Photo/Bernat Armangue)

On Wednesday at least 2,000 exhausted and starving people waited in rice paddy fields at one border crossing for Bangladesh border guards to let them enter. Evening fell, with no permission granted.

Rohingya Muslims help another after crossing the Naf river near Palong Khali, Bangladesh, Wednesday, Nov. 1 2017. (AP Photo/Bernat Armangue)

Rohingya women carry children and belongings and walk after having just crossed the Naf river near Palong Khali, Bangladesh, Wednesday, Nov. 1 2017. (AP Photo/Bernat Armangue)

So they waited, crouched in the muddy fields. The children carried younger siblings. The elderly were helped along by relatives.

All of them were hungry and exhausted as they waited. Some collapsed. Others wept as they clung to their children.

The exodus of Rohingya Muslims started Aug. 25 when insurgents attacked dozens of police posts in Myanmar.

Rohingya Muslims cross the border from Myanmar into Bangladesh, near Palong Khali, Bangladesh, Wednesday, Nov. 1, 2017. (AP Photo/Bernat Armangue)

Rohingya Muslims cross the border from Myanmar into Bangladesh, near Palong Khali, Bangladesh, Wednesday, Nov. 1, 2017. (AP Photo/Bernat Armangue)

Rohingya Muslim children stay close to elders as they cross the border from Myanmar into Bangladesh, near Palong Khali, Bangladesh, Wednesday, Nov. 1, 2017.  (AP Photo/Bernat Armangue)

The retribution from Myanmar's authorities was swift and brutal.

Hundreds of Rohingya villages in Rakhine state have been set on fire. Fleeing Rohingya have told stories of arson and rape and shootings by Myanmar soldiers and Buddhist mobs.

The violence, which the U.N. describes as ethnic cleansing, has pushed more than 600,000 Rohingya into Bangladesh.

Rohingya Muslims cross the border from Myanmar into Bangladesh, near Palong Khali, Bangladesh, Wednesday, Nov. 1, 2017. (AP Photo/Bernat Armangue)

A Rohingya Muslim woman carries an infant child and walks with a group after crossing the border from Myanmar into Bangladesh, near Palong Khali, Bangladesh, Wednesday, Nov. 1, 2017. (AP Photo/Bernat Armangue)

Rohingya Muslims cross the border from Myanmar into Bangladesh, near Palong Khali, Bangladesh, Wednesday, Nov. 1, 2017. (AP Photo/Bernat Armangue)

Rohingya Muslims crowd an embankment after crossing the border from Myanmar into Bangladesh, near Palong Khali, Bangladesh, Wednesday, Nov. 1, 2017. (AP Photo/Bernat Armangue)

An exhausted Rohingya lies on the muddy ground after crossing over from the Myanmar border into Bangladesh, near Palong Khali, Bangladesh, Wednesday, Nov. 1 2017. (AP Photo/Bernat Armangue)

Groups of Rohingya Muslims cross the Naf river at the border between Myanmar and Bangladesh, near Palong Khali, Bangladesh, Wednesday, Nov. 1 2017. (AP Photo/Bernat Armangue)

NEW YORK (AP) — A man fatally stabbed three people across a swath of Manhattan on Monday morning, carrying out a series of random attacks without uttering a word to his victims, officials said.

The 51-year-old suspect was in police custody after being found with blood on his clothes and the two kitchen knives he was carrying, authorities said. The suspect's and victims' names weren't immediately released.

“Three New Yorkers. Unprovoked attacks that left us searching for answers on how something like this could happen,” Mayor Eric Adams said at a news conference.

Investigators were working to understand what propelled the rampage, which happened within 2 1/2 hours.

“No words exchanged. No property taken. Just attacked, viciously,” said Joseph Kenny, the New York Police Department’s chief of detectives. “He just walked up to them and began to attack them with the knives.”

The first stabbing, on West 19th Street, killed a 36-year-old construction worker who was standing by his work site near the Hudson River a little before 8:30 a.m. About two hours later and across the island of Manhattan, a 68-year-old man was attacked while fishing in the East River near East 30th Street.

Both men died shortly after the stabbings, Kenny said.

The suspect then apparently traveled north near the riverfront. Around 10:55 a.m., a 36-year-old woman was stabbed multiple times near the United Nations headquarters on East 42nd Street, Kenny said. She died later Monday at a hospital, police said.

A passing cabdriver saw the third attack and alerted police on nearby First Avenue and East 46th Street, officials said. An officer soon apprehended the suspect.

The bloodshed happened in a major city where, like in others, crime has taken a prominent place in political discourse and everyday concerns in the years since pandemic lockdowns emptied streets and spurred disorder. Killings in New York City so far in 2024 have declined 14% in two years, but serious assaults are up about 12%, according to police statistics.

Some recent stabbings in public places have drawn attention, including a fatal attack at the Coney Island subway station just weeks ago.

Adams, a Democrat, called Monday’s violence “a clear, clear example” of failures in the criminal justice system and elsewhere.

The suspect in Monday's rampage, who apparently is homeless, had been sentenced in a criminal case a few months ago and was arrested in a grand larceny case last month, officials said.

The rampage came three years after a string of stabbings at various points along a subway line killed two people and wounded two others within a few hours.

In 2019, four people who were sleeping in doorways and sidewalks in Chinatown were beaten to death, and a fifth was seriously injured, early one Saturday morning.

Associated Press writers Karen Matthews in New York and Anthony Izaguirre in Albany, New York, contributed.

This story has been corrected to show that the construction worker who was killed was 36, not 26.

NYPD officers stand at the site where the suspect of a stabbing spree was captured outside Turkish House, New York, Monday, Nov. 18, 2024. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura)

A jacket covered in blood lays on the ground at the site of a stabbing spree near the United Nations Headquarters in New York, Monday, Nov. 18, 2024. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura)

Blood stains the ground at the site of a stabbing spree near the United Nations Headquarters, New York, Monday, Nov. 18, 2024. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura)

Blood stains is the ground at the site of stabbing spree near the United Nations Headquarters in New York, Monday, Nov. 18, 2024. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura)

A shoe is left at the site of a stabbing spree near the United Nations Headquarters in New York, Monday, Nov. 18, 2024. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura)

This image provided by Office of the New York Mayor shows New York Mayor Eric Adams, left center, as he briefs the media on a series of incidents that took place within the confines of the 10th and 17th Police Precincts, Monday, Nov. 18, 2024. (Mayoral Photography Office/Michael Appleton via AP)

NYPD officers stand at the site where the suspect of a stabbing spree was captured outside Turkish House, New York, Monday, Nov. 18, 2024. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura)

NYPD officers stand at the site of stabbing spree near the United Nations Headquarters in New York, Monday, Nov. 18, 2024. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura)

An NYPD officer works at the scene of a stabbing in New York, Monday, Nov. 18, 2024. (AP Photo/David R. Martin)

This image released by the New York City Police Department shows a knife that was recovered at a stabbing in New York, Monday Nov. 18, 2024. (New York City Police Department via AP)