Knife attack in a Polish Benedictine monastery: one dead and four injured

A man has been killed in a knife attack in a Benedictine monastery in Poland. Four other people were seriously injured, local police said. According to information from the broadcaster TVN24, the dead man is said to be a clergyman. The 31-year-old suspected perpetrator was arrested. According to the police, he was said to have had a Ukrainian passport with him.

The man broke into the monastery grounds in Jaroslaw in southeastern Poland in the morning hours, a spokeswoman for the public prosecutor's office told TVN24. The victims were taken to hospitals with stab wounds and one person died there from their injuries. The murder weapon was probably a kitchen knife. There is still no information about the exact course of the crime or a possible motive.

An eyewitness told the station that the alleged perpetrator suddenly attacked several clergy before mass. He then ran into a café on the monastery grounds and attacked other people there.

The Benedictine monastery in Jaroslaw is located 35 kilometers from Poland's border with Ukraine. For years it has been providing assistance to war refugees who come to Poland from the neighboring country attacked by Russia. “I have the feeling that this is an attack on the good that is being done here,” the head of the monastery told TVN24.