THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — One person was killed and another seriously wounded in a stabbing incident late Thursday in the Dutch port city of Rotterdam, police said. Police arrested a suspect who was also injured.
Police spokesman Wessel Stolle said officers were investigating the stabbing near the landmark Erasmus Bridge. Stolle said there was no immediate word on a motive, but “we look into all possible scenarios.”
Dutch daily De Telegraaf, citing witnesses at the scene, reported that a man attacked people at random with two knives while shouting Allahu Akbar, the Arabic phrase meaning God is great.
Stolle said police at the scene also had heard that the man shouted the phrase, and that "it’s part of the investigation.”
A sports instructor, Reniël Renato David Litecia, said he hit the attacker with two sticks after seeing him attack somebody and managed to take the knives and throw them away.
He said he initially thought it was a fight, "but when I started running in that direction I saw that it wasn’t a fight. It was a man with two long knives who was stabbing another young guy and when I started shouting he turned around and started approaching everyone who was around him.”
Another police spokesperson, Kristel Arntz, said the assailant is believed to have attacked one person in an underground parking lot and then a second victim near a busy terrace near one end of the bridge that spans the New Maas river that runs through Rotterdam.
Arntz also said it was too early in the investigation to establish a motive.
“We have arrested a suspect, we are going to question him. We will look at all the witness statements and then we will look at what the possible motive was,” she said.
The identity of the victims and suspect were not immediately clear.
FILE - The Erasmus Bridge towers over the river Maas in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, April 2007. (AP Photo/ Bas Czerwinski, File)
ROME (AP) — Pope Francis is suffering from a cold and will deliver his Sunday blessing from indoors, the Vatican said, announcing the precautions ahead of a busy Christmas period and launch of the Holy Year that will sorely test Francis' stamina and health.
The Vatican cited the cold temperatures outside and Francis' strenuous week ahead, after a wheezing and congested-sounding pope delivered his annual Christmas greeting to Vatican bureaucrats earlier Saturday.
Francis, who turned 88 this past week, on Tuesday is due to inaugurate his big Holy Year and preside over Christmas Eve and Christmas Day celebrations in St. Peter's Basilica. On Thursday, he is scheduled to travel to Rome's main prison to inaugurate the Jubilee there.
Francis has long suffered bouts of bronchitis, especially in winter. In 2023, he ended up the hospital to receive intravenous antibiotics. He had part of one lung removed as a young man and frequently seems out of breath, especially after walking or exerting himself.
He took several minutes to catch his breath on Saturday, when he delivered his annual Christmas greetings to Vatican bureaucrats and lay employees. Once again, he used the occasion to admonish the backstabbing and gossiping among his closest collaborators and urge them instead to speak well of one another.
“A church community lives in joyful and fraternal harmony to the extent that its members walk in the life of humility, renouncing evil thinking and speaking ill of others,” Francis said. “Gossip is an evil that destroys social life, sickens people’s hearts and leads to nothing. The people say it very well: Gossip is zero.”
“Beware of this,” he added.
By now Francis’ annual Christmas address to the priests, bishops and cardinals who work in the Vatican Curia has become a lesson in humility -– and humilitation -- as Francis offers a public dressing down of some of the sins in the workplace at the headquarters of the Catholic Church.
In the most biting edition, in 2014, Francis listed the “15 ailments of the Curia,” in which he accused the prelates of using their Vatican careers to grab power and wealth. He accused them of living “hypocritical” double lives and forgetting — due to “spiritual Alzheimer’s” — that they’re supposed to be joyful men of God.
In 2022, Francis warned them that the devil lurks among them, saying it is an “elegant demon” that works in people who have a rigid, holier-than-thou way of living the Catholic faith.
This year, Francis revisited a theme he has often warned about: gossiping and speaking ill of people behind their backs. It was a reference to the sometimes toxic atmosphere in closed environments such as the Vatican or workplaces where office gossip and criticism circulate but are rarely aired in public.
Francis has long welcomed frank and open debates and even has welcomed criticism of his own work. But he has urged critics to tell it to his face, and not behind his back.
Francis opened his address Saturday with a reminder of the devastation of the war in Gaza, where he said even his patriarch had been unable to enter due to Israeli bombing.
"Yesterday children have been bombed. This is cruelty, this is not war," he said.
The annual appointment kicks off Francis’ busy Christmas schedule, this year made even more strenuous because of the start of the Vatican’s Holy Year on Christmas Eve. The Jubilee is expected to bring some 32 million pilgrims to Rome over 2025, and Francis has a dizzying calendar of events to minister to them.
After addressing the Vatican prelates, Francis issued a less critical address to the Vatican’s lay employees who gathered in the city state's main audience hall along with their families. Francis thanked them for their service and urged them to make sure they take time to play with their children and visit grandparents.
“If you have any particular problems, tell your bosses, we want to resolve them,” he added at the end. “You do this with dialogue, not by keeping quiet. Together we’ll try to resolve the difficulties.”
It was an apparent reference to reports of growing unease within the Vatican workforce that has been called out by the Association of Vatican Lay Employees, the closest thing the Vatican has to a labor union. The association has in recent months voiced alarm about the health of the Vatican pension system and fears of even more cost-cutting, and demanded the Vatican leadership listen to workers’ concerns.
Earlier this year 49 employees of the Vatican Museums — the Holy See's main source of revenue — filed a class-action lawsuit in the Vatican tribunal complaining about labor woes, overtime and working conditions.
Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.
Pope Francis arrives to exchange season greetings with Vatican employees, in the Paul VI Hall at the Vatican, Saturday, Dec. 21, 2024. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)
Pope Francis exchanges season greetings with Vatican employees, in the Paul VI Hall at the Vatican, Saturday, Dec. 21, 2024. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)
Pope Francis exchanges the season's greetings with Vatican employees, in the Paul VI Hall at the Vatican, Saturday, Dec. 21, 2024. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)
Pope Francis arrives to exchange the season's greetings with Vatican employees, in the Paul VI Hall at the Vatican, Saturday, Dec. 21, 2024. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)
Pope Francis exchanges the season's greetings with Vatican employees, in the Paul VI Hall at the Vatican, Saturday, Dec. 21, 2024. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)
Pope Francis delivers his blessing as he exchanges season greetings with Vatican employees, in the Paul VI Hall at the Vatican, Saturday, Dec. 21, 2024. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)
Pope Francis exchanges the season's greetings with Vatican employees, in the Paul VI Hall at the Vatican, Saturday, Dec. 21, 2024. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)
Pope Francis meets with Italian pilgrims participating in the Camino de Santiago, in St. Peter's Basilica at the Vatican, Thursday, Dec. 19, 2024. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)
Pope Francis tries a skullcap received by faithful during the weekly general audience at the Vatican, Wednesday, Dec. 18, 2024. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino)
