LONDON — Bloodied kids ran screaming from a dance and yoga class “like a scene from a horror film” to flee an adolescent’s savage knife assault that killed two kids and wounded 11 different folks Monday in northwest England, police and witnesses mentioned.

A 17-year-old boy was arrested on suspicion of homicide and tried homicide within the stabbing in Southport, a seaside city close to Liverpool, Merseyside Police mentioned. The motive was not clear, however police mentioned detectives weren’t treating the assault as terror-related.

9 kids had been wounded — six of them in crucial situation — within the newest headline-grabbing assault amid a latest rise in knife crime that has stoked anxieties and led to requires the federal government to do extra to clamp down on bladed weapons.

Two wounded adults who tried to defend the pupils had been in crucial situation, police mentioned.

“We imagine the adults who had been injured had been bravely making an attempt to guard the kids who had been being attacked,” Merseyside Police Chief Constable Serena Kennedy mentioned.

The Taylor Swift-themed workshop was held on the primary week of college trip for kids aged about 6 to 11. The 2-hour session was led by two ladies — a yoga teacher and a dance teacher — in accordance with an internet itemizing.

Witnesses described listening to blood-curdling screams and seeing kids lined in blood rising from the enterprise that hosts all the things from being pregnant workshops and meditation periods to ladies’s bootcamps.

“They had been within the street, operating from the nursery,” mentioned Naked Varathan, who owns a store close by. “They’d been stabbed, right here, right here, right here, in every single place,” indicating the neck, again and chest.

Prime Minister Keir Starmer referred to as the assault “horrendous and deeply surprising.” King Charles III despatched his “condolences, prayers and deepest sympathies” for these affected by the “completely horrific incident.”

Police had been referred to as shortly earlier than midday to a avenue the place a number of small companies are positioned behind rows of brick homes within the metropolis of about 100,000.

The primary officers who arrived had been shocked to search out so many casualties from the “ferocious assault,” most of them kids with critical accidents, Kennedy mentioned.

Colin Parry, an auto physique store proprietor, mentioned a lot of the stabbing victims gave the impression to be younger women.

“The moms are coming right here now and screaming,” Parry mentioned. “It is sort of a scene from a horror film. … It’s like one thing from America, not like sunny Southport.”

The suspect, who has not been recognized, lived in a village about 5 miles (8 kilometers) from the positioning of the assault, police mentioned. He was initially from Cardiff, Wales.

Ryan Carney, who lives together with his mom on the street, mentioned his mom noticed emergency staff carrying kids “lined in pink, lined in blood. She mentioned she may see the stab wounds within the backs of the kids.”

“All these items by no means actually occurs round right here,” he mentioned. “You hear of it, stabbings and stuff like that in main cities, your Manchesters, your Londons. That is sunny Southport. That’s what folks name it. The solar’s out. It’s a stunning place to be.”

Britain’s worst assault on kids occurred in 1996, when 43-year-old Thomas Hamilton shot 16 kindergarten pupils and their instructor lifeless in a faculty gymnasium in Dunblane, Scotland. The U.Okay. subsequently banned the non-public possession of virtually all handguns.

Mass shootings and killings with firearms are uncommon in Britain, the place knives had been utilized in about 40% of homicides within the yr to March 2023.