Boys out of critical condition after Zurich stabbings

Three five-year-old boys wounded in a stabbing attack on a group of children in Zurich are no longer in mortal danger, prosecutors said Wednesday.

The attack occurred Tuesday on a mostly residential street in the Oerlikon district in the north of Switzerland's biggest city.

A 23-year-old Chinese man arrested at the scene confessed under questioning, Zurich prosecutors said Wednesday.

It said the man had been in Switzerland for study purposes since the middle of last year, without providing further details.

"The presumption of innocence applies" until all legal proceedings have been concluded, it said.

"There have so far been no indications of accomplices or co-perpetrators," it said, adding though that investigations were continuing "intensively".

The prosecutor's office said it had filed a court petition for the suspect to be remanded in custody.

One of the boys had been seriously wounded in the attack, police said Tuesday, while two others were also hurt.

"The injured are three boys aged five. Their lives are now out of danger," prosecutors said Wednesday.

Police said a daycare worker was accompanying several children to the centre when a man suddenly attacked the children with a blade.

"The daycare worker reacted immediately and overpowered the attacker with the help of a man," police said.

  'Screaming for help'  

Mirco Bruhwiler, a 38-year-old who works nearby, told the 20 Minuten newspaper that he held the suspect until officers arrived.

He said he usually heard the children singing as they passed by, but on Tuesday "they were screaming for help, so I went outside".

Bruhwiler said the suspect was calm and sitting on the ground.

"But I thought I had to hold him so he wouldn't run away, so I took him in a controlled grip," he said.

A woman from the daycare centre immobilised the blade under her foot, the newspaper report added.

20 Minuten also had footage of a police unit entering a residential building not far from the scene of the attack, saying the suspect lived in a one-room apartment.

Stabbings are a rare occurrence in Switzerland, even more so when involving children.

In China, stabbing attacks have multiplied in recent years, including deadly attacks specifically targeting schools.

In July 2023, six people were killed and another injured in a stabbing attack at a kindergarten in the southern province of Guangdong.

And in August 2022, three people died and six others were injured in a stabbing at a kindergarten in the southeastern province of Jiangxi.