A 54-year-old woman on a bus in the Parisian suburbs of Seine-Saint-Denis was seriously injured after a man sprayed her with flammable liquid and set her on fire.
The incident occurred in the commune of Noisy-le-Sec at about 7:15 pm on Saturday, in what appears to have been an unprovoked random attack.
Police arrested a suspect, a 41-year-old man known to the authorities, the next day. The man is believed to have sprayed the woman with flammable liquid, possibly gasoline, and set her on fire before fleeing the bus. The bus driver and the victim’s companion were also injured, Le Parisien reports.
Bobigny’s prosecutor’s office said an investigation into the attempted murder had been initiated.
Five members of a family, including four children, killed in the ‘hammer and knife’ attack in the Paris suburb https://t.co/QgWK2ejlWF
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A witness, a 16-year-old girl named Ali, described the incident to Le Parisien, saying: “There were big flames on the bus. It smelled like something burned. A man shouted: ‘Stop! Stop!’ It was very shocking. “
Prosecutors say the victim suffered severe scalp and neck burns and was transported to a local hospital, but is not believed to be in critical condition.
The mayor of Noisy-le-Sec, Olivier Sarrabeyrouse, a member of the French Communist Party (PCF), reacted to the incident, saying he was “shocked, disturbed and distressed by this tragedy”.
The incident is just the latest act of extreme violence in Paris’ forbidden suburbs, highly populated by migrants, in recent years.
The attack comes several months after five family members, including four children, were killed and five others injured in a hammer and knife attack in the same commune.
Police said the attack was possibly motivated by a family dispute and that two victims were found dead when the police arrived at the scene, and the other three died an hour and a half later at a local hospital.
Server in the forbidden suburb of Paris murdered by sandwich https://t.co/HvHr6xSQbA
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