Sydneysiders pay tribute to victims of stabbing attack that stunned the nation

The Prime Minister presented his condolences to the families, six days after the killing committed by a forty-year-old suffering from mental disorders.

Several hundred people gathered on Sydney’s iconic Bondi Beach on Sunday April 21 to pay tribute to the six victims of a recent knife attack at a nearby shopping center. These murders committed on April 13 caused shock among many Australians, in a country where crimes of such violence remain rare.

The public sat on the grass in a seaside park to mourn the five women and the Pakistani security guard who died in the attack at the Westfield shopping center in Bondi Junction. With the sound of waves crashing on the beach in the background, a choir sang at dusk Keep Your Loving Arms Around Me (“Keep your loving arms around me”), a religious song. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese offered his country’s condolences to the six lives “torn away on this painful Saturday afternoon”.

The policewoman who killed the attacker attends the ceremony

The perpetrator of the attack, Joel Cauchi, a 40-year-old mentally ill man, was found and then shot dead by a police officer, Amy Scott, who attended the ceremony. Joel Cauchi’s parents said their son was diagnosed with schizophrenia at the age of 17. But that he left their Queensland home and had abandoned treatment.

His victims are all women apart from a 30-year-old Pakistani man who worked as a security guard. A fashion designer, a Chinese student, a volunteer surf lifesaver, the daughter of an entrepreneur and a young mother lost their lives in the attack. The latter, Ashlee Good, left her injured nine-month-old baby, Harriet, in the care of two strangers before being rushed to hospital where she died. The child is out of danger.

Despite the rarity of these types of crimes in Australia, two days after the mall attack, an Assyrian Christian bishop was brutally stabbed during a live service in Sydney’s west. The bishop said he was recovering in hospital. A 16-year-old suspect has been charged with a “terrorist act”.