French police are searching for a thug who stabbed an elderly woman in a nursing home in the South of France, said Friday the national gendarmerie.
The unusually large police operation was launched to search for the suspected attacker, police believed he was armed with a gun and a knife. The assailant and the motive for the killings was unclear. The press service of the military police are unable to say whether this incident is related to a terrorist act.
The representative of the gendarme service said early Friday that more than 100 members of the security forces were sent to the village Monterra-sur-Lez, near Montpellier in the southern tip of France, after it became known about the murder of an elderly woman who had worn the San nuns.
The woman's body was discovered, with a gag in his mouth, outside the building with three stab wounds, said the spokesman. The circumstances of the murder are under investigation. Security forces raided the residence as well as in basements and side buildings, but did not find the assailant. The spokesman said that 59 of the monks in the institution are out of danger, and the search continues with a helicopter and police dogs.
France was under a state of emergency in the year since the attack of ISIS in Paris, during which killed 130 people. Security was increased at religious sites, in particular, after the militants attacked the Catholic Church in Normandy in July, in which two of the attackers killed the priest and took the older members hostage.
sections: World News, Accidents, Accidents |