Eight children ranging from babies to teenagers were yesterday found dead at a home in the Australian city of Cairns, police said, reportedly in a gruesome mass stabbing just days after a deadly siege in Sydney.
Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott called the Cairns tragedy heartbreaking, with the nation already in an outpouring of national grief over Monday’s dramatic standoff in Sydney, which left two hostages and the gunman dead.
“All parents would feel a gut-wrenching sadness at what has happened,” Abbott said in a statement. “This is an unspeakable crime.”
Photo: AFP
Cairns police said they were called to the scene in the northern city and found the bodies of the children, aged between 18 months and 15 years.
A woman in her 30s, who police said is believed to be the mother of seven of the dead children, was injured in the incident in the suburb of Manoora, 10 minutes from the city center. TV footage showed her being stretchered into an ambulance.
The victims have not yet been officially identified, but police said late yesterday that the eighth child is not from the same family group, and that there were no formal suspects for the distressing deaths.
“We’re not talking about naming suspects or identifying particular suspects at this stage,” Cairns regional crime coordinator Detective Inspector Bruno Asnicar said.
“We’re looking at anybody that’s had any involvement. Everybody who’s had any involvement at all in the past two or three days is a person of interest,” he said.
The Australian Associated Press cited the injured woman’s cousin, Lisa Thaiday, as saying a 20-year-old man arrived home to find his siblings dead inside the house.
“I just can’t believe it. We just found out [about] those poor babies,” Thaiday said.
Reports widely said the children had been stabbed, while the Cairns Post reported they were also suffocated, although police did not immediately confirm this.
Cairns is a tropical city with a population of more than 150,000 people and is popular with international tourists as a gateway to the Great Barrier Reef, one of Australia’s biggest tourist sites.
Who killed the children remains unclear, but Asnicar said there was no need for the public to be worried, suggesting no one was on the loose.
“As it stands there’s no need for the public to be concerned about this other than the fact that this is a tragic, tragic event,” he told a media conference.
“The situation is well-controlled at the moment. There shouldn’t be any concern for anyone else out of this environment,” he said.
He added that it was too early to determine the chain of events.
“The crime scene is being locked down and that includes from me,” he said. “Nobody goes in there until our forensic people have finished and until we have done that we’re not going to be able to clearly establish any relationships.”
ROLLER-COASTER RIDE: More than five earthquakes ranging from magnitude 4.4 to 5.5 on the Richter scale shook eastern Taiwan in rapid succession yesterday afternoon Back-to-back weather fronts are forecast to hit Taiwan this week, resulting in rain across the nation in the coming days, the Central Weather Administration said yesterday, as it also warned residents in mountainous regions to be wary of landslides and rockfalls. As the first front approached, sporadic rainfall began in central and northern parts of Taiwan yesterday, the agency said, adding that rain is forecast to intensify in those regions today, while brief showers would also affect other parts of the nation. A second weather system is forecast to arrive on Thursday, bringing additional rain to the whole nation until Sunday, it
LANDSLIDES POSSIBLE: The agency advised the public to avoid visiting mountainous regions due to more expected aftershocks and rainfall from a series of weather fronts A series of earthquakes over the past few days were likely aftershocks of the April 3 earthquake in Hualien County, with further aftershocks to be expected for up to a year, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Based on the nation’s experience after the quake on Sept. 21, 1999, more aftershocks are possible over the next six months to a year, the agency said. A total of 103 earthquakes of magnitude 4 on the local magnitude scale or higher hit Hualien County from 5:08pm on Monday to 10:27am yesterday, with 27 of them exceeding magnitude 5. They included two, of magnitude
CONDITIONAL: The PRC imposes secret requirements that the funding it provides cannot be spent in states with diplomatic relations with Taiwan, Emma Reilly said China has been bribing UN officials to obtain “special benefits” and to block funding from countries that have diplomatic ties with Taiwan, a former UN employee told the British House of Commons on Tuesday. At a House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee hearing into “international relations within the multilateral system,” former Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) employee Emma Reilly said in a written statement that “Beijing paid bribes to the two successive Presidents of the [UN] General Assembly” during the two-year negotiation of the Sustainable Development Goals. Another way China exercises influence within the UN Secretariat is
Taiwan’s first drag queen to compete on the internationally acclaimed RuPaul’s Drag Race, Nymphia Wind (妮妃雅), was on Friday crowned the “Next Drag Superstar.” Dressed in a sparkling banana dress, Nymphia Wind swept onto the stage for the final, and stole the show. “Taiwan this is for you,” she said right after show host RuPaul announced her as the winner. “To those who feel like they don’t belong, just remember to live fearlessly and to live their truth,” she said on stage. One of the frontrunners for the past 15 episodes, the 28-year-old breezed through to the final after weeks of showcasing her unique