Multiple casualties in Finland stabbing attack

Police have arrested a man suspected of stabbing several people in the Finnish city of Turku.

Reports say police shot in the leg the man who reportedly stabbed several people while running on a street in the southwestern city before he was taken into custody.

Local media on Friday reported several people seen lying on the ground in the central part of the city.

On Twitter, police urged people to avoid that part of Turku. “Several people stabbed in central Turku. People are requested to avoid the city center,” South-West Finland police tweeted at 4:40 p.m. local time.

Police also warned that several other suspects could still be at large.

Security forces tweeted that police were “looking for other possible perpetrators.”

Tabloid Ilta-Sanomat says six people were injured, one man and five women, and that a woman with stroller was attacked by a man with a large knife.

A reporter at the scene said a body on the ground had been covered.

Witnesses reported hearing multiple gunshots and seeing at least one person lying lifeless on the ground at the city center’s Puutori market square. The attacker shouted extremist slogans allegedly linking him to the Daesh Takfiri terrorists, they said.