Witnesses to the horrific machete attack in Cadiz yesterday night have described the moment they thought the 25-year-old suspect could have “killed them all” as he burst into their chapel. A man, who is now in police custody, stormed into two churches, attacking two priests and several parishioners, before attempting to “kick [down] the doors” of a third building prior to being arrested. Locals from both churches, as well as in the nearby plaza where the man was detained, have described the fear they felt as the assailant made his way through the municipality of Algeciras.
One of the victims of the machete attack, a parishioner from the first church, described the fear they felt when the suspect burst into the chapel of San Isidro, part of the Church of María Auxiliadora, that “this could be a massacre”.
They described the chapel’s priest, Antonio Rodríguez, who is now in hospital, being in the middle of a blessing when he entered the building. The pair argued, the parishioner reported, before the suspect stabbed the priest in the neck.
“Inside there were a dozen people listening to the mass, all of them elderly,” the witness said.
“It could have been a massacre. We were lucky here. They were 80-year-olds. He could have killed them all.”
Looking to expand his list of targets, the young man then fled to the nearby Church of La Palma, a five-minute walk away, leaving the parishioners to try and save their wounded priest.
In La Palma, witnesses said they were celebrating the Eucharist when a man marched in, his machete red with the blood of his first victim.
He reportedly shouted “death to the Christians” as he forced his way, before attacking the sexton, Diego Valencia, whose job it was to take care of the church and its maintenance, in front of the churchgoers.
The young man stabbed Mr Valencia in the abdomen, according to witnesses, before the sexton fled towards the square.
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The assailant chased the church official into the nearby Plaza Alta, where he stabbed the sexton in the head by the central fountain, fatally wounding him.
A local resident, who identified herself as Maculi, described seeing “a lot of people running from the Plaza Alta” moments after the deadly attack.
She said: “I was in Ancha street looking at shop windows and, suddenly, I saw a lot of people running from the Plaza Alta.
“The first person I saw running was a woman with a pram. She was running in panic. Behind her, more people started to come out, including a lady who was shouting: ‘They’ve killed him! They’ve killed him!’”
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Maculi said she then approached the fleeing woman. She said: “I asked her what was going on, and all she said was: ‘They’ve killed him! They’ve hit him in the head with a machete and killed him!’
“At that moment, police cars started coming down the street, which is a pedestrian street. Normal police, secret police, all kinds of police… And the officers started asking what was going on.”
Maculi told reporters that it was at that point that she decided to go to her mother’s house, roughly 200 metres from the plaza, to escape the panic.
Later witness reports confirmed that the young man, believed to be of North African descent, had tried to “kick the doors” of the chapel of the Virgen de Europa, a walk away from the Plaza Alta, but was arrested by police before anybody else was injured.
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