The bodies of 8 children ranging from 18 months to 15 years have been discovered inside a home in the suburb of Manoora in the northern Australian city of Cairns. The incident which the police say must have been a mass stabbing, took place morning of 19 December 2014, in what the police say must have been a mass stabbing.
According to the BBC World News, The police in Queensland visited the property after receiving reports of a woman with serious injuries and they were shocked to see the dead kids.
A police statement said:
"During an examination of the residence police located the bodies of the children, all aged between 18 months and 15 years. We believe the other child is a family member but that is being followed up."
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Police detectives said a 38-year-old woman who was the mother of at least seven of the children, had been taken to hospital with stab wounds but was stable.
Bruno Asnicar of Cairns Police said in an earlier briefing that the scenes his officers had witnessed were "extremely distressing"
"She is a 38-year-old woman I believe and it’s very, very early days but she’s in a stable condition. As it stands at the moment there is no need for the public to be concerned about this other than the fact that it’s just a tragic, tragic event."
The Australian Associated Press cited the woman’s cousin as saying the children were all siblings and the woman was their mother.
It said another sibling, a 20-year-old man, arrived home to find his brothers and sisters dead inside the residence, along with his mother.
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The police are speaking to a range of people, he said, including a man seen near the house earlier in the day, but there are as yet no formal suspects.
Asnicar said:
"The situation is well controlled at the moment. There shouldn’t be any concern for anyone else out of this environment and as we progress further we’ll be sharing the results of our investigation.
We don’t know all the details yet, but reports said it concerned an indigenous family."
Australia is already in a state of heightened alert after police stormed a Sydney cafe early on Tuesday morning to end a 16-hour hostage standoff in which three people were killed, including the hostage-taker.
