A church worker has been killed and a priest injured in an attack at two churches in the port city of Algeciras, Spain, in what authorities are investigating as a possible act of terror.
The suspect was arrested in the southern city and is in the custody of Spain’s National Police but has yet to be formally identified. The attack began at around 7pm local time on Wednesday (January 25) when the armed man went into the San Isidro church and assaulted a priest, who was seriously injured, the ministry said. The assailant then went to a second church a five minute walk away - the Nuestra Senora de La Palma - where he entered and continued his rampage, assaulting the church worker, who was a sexton.
The sexton, whose job it is to take care of the church and its maintenance, fled outside where the attacker dealt him the fatal wounds in a public square, the ministry said. The Algeciras town hall said the sexton was named Diego Valencia and identified the wounded priest as Antonio Rodriguez. The town hall said he was admitted to hospital and was in a stable condition. Local media reported that at least three other people were injured. Spain’s National Court said a judge has opened an investigation into a possible act of terrorism.
Police are investigating the incident, the Interior Ministry said, to determine the “nature of the attack”. It offered no further detail on the attacker’s possible motive. Spain's prime minister Pedro Sanchez expressed his grief over the incident, tweeting: "I want to convey my most sincere condolences to the relatives of the sacristan who died in the terrible attack in Algeciras. I wish a speedy recovery to the injured. All our support for the work being carried out by the State Security Forces and Corps."
The secretary general of Spain’s Episcopal Conference, Francisco Garcia, wrote on Twitter that “I have received the news of the incident in Algeciras with great pain”.
“These are sad moments of suffering, we are united by the pain of families of the victims and for the Diocese of Cadiz,” he added. Algeciras is near the southern tip of Spain, resting across from a bay from Gibraltar and is home to an important port with ferry connections to northern Africa.
The town hall declared a day of mourning when flags will fly at half-mast. “We are all stunned by these acts, which have filled us with pain,” mayor Jose Landaluce said. "Algeciras has always been a city where concord and tolerance reign, despite incidents like this that create an image that does not correspond to reality.”
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