Irishman ‘shook to his core’ after witnessing knife attack in Sydney

An Irish man has been left “absolutely shook to the core” after witnessing the deadly knife attack in a shopping centre in Sydney, Australia.

Five women and one man were killed by a 40 year-old man wielding a knife inside the shopping centre on Saturday. The male attacker, who was known to police, was shot dead by a senior off-duty policewoman.

Police have stated they do not think the attack was terror related. Niall Naughton, 27, from Boston in Co. Clare, told RTE’s Saturday with Colm Ó Mongáin, how thoughts turned his family back home in Ireland when he was told a man was stabbing people inside the shopping centre.

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“I was thinking of my own family at the time – what if there is a possibility that something is going to happen to me and I am going to die. I couldn’t even reach for my phone because there were so many of us packed into the room. It was just horrifying scenes to be honest.”

Niall, a mental health manager, has been living in Sydney for the last seven months – he described the moment he first learned something was unfolding.

“I just decided to go in and do some shopping for myself for the day – usually I don’t venture near Bondi but for some reason I did today, unfortunately.

“So, I went in and go my haircut, which was on the same floor that everything happened and went downstairs to Zara to get some clothes for myself and then that’s when the events unfolded.

“I picked up the clothes I wanted to try on and went to the dressing room and I could hear what sounded like a stampede of cattle running through the shop. I had the curtain closed, I couldn’t see anything and then someone pulled back the curtain and said ‘get out, get out, get out, you need to go, you need to go. there’s someone stabbing’.

“At this stage because we were all running in the one direction we had no idea what was going on. We were escorted down into the basement by Zara staff. They managed to bolt the door. Everyone was screaming crying, it was absolutely horrific – there were children as young as four years-old with us.”

Niall continued: “Because we had no idea what was going on or where this person was, everyone was in a state of panic. It was not a calm situation. The staff did their best to protect us.

“I was thinking of my own family at the time – what if there is a possibility that something is going to happen to me and I am going to die. I couldn’t even reach for my phone because there were so many of us packed into the room. It was just horrifying scenes to be honest.”

Luckily, the room Niall and the other members of the public were hiding in had access to a street outside.

Niall volunteered to open the door and he made sure the coast was clear. He said he saw throngs of people running in the same direction.

The brave Co Clare man even helped two young girls who had become separated from their parents during the incident to find them again.

“I rang my friend after, I didn’t know where to go or what to do. I just ran as far away from the shopping centre as I could. Luckily I got a taxi and my friends came to meet me,” he said.

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