Bible-reading woman stabbed by Afghan asylum seeker in Austria

A Christian woman in her 50s was stabbed by an Afghan migrant while she was reading the Bible in an asylum accommodation in Austria. The attacker later told police that he had assaulted her because he had “personal problems.”

The incident took place in the Timelkam municipality in Upper Austria state, police said on Thursday, as cited by the local media.

The woman and her husband had been invited to read the Bible by some of the center’s Christian residents, which is apparently what angered the 22-year-old Afghan asylum seeker.

When he heard the woman reading the Bible, he entered the kitchen where she was standing and stabbed her with a butter knife.
Luckily for the woman, she was wearing a thick winter coat that protected her from serious injury, but she did hurt her ear when she fell backwards.

The man was detained by police and later taken to a prison in the city of Wels, some 35 kilometers from Timelkam. The attacker claimed that he stabbed the woman because he was suffering from “personal problems.” He also noted that he had never seen his victim before.

Crimes committed in the EU by asylum seekers allegedly fleeing war and persecution in the Middle East and North Africa have been making headlines all over Europe since last year when over a million people poured into Europe as the refugee crisis intensified.

In November of this year, the Austrian Interior Ministry admitted that there has been a steep jump in the number of criminal incidents involving asylum seekers over the past few years.

In September, five Afghan refugees linked to sexual assaults were detained in Wels.

In 2015, an asylum seeker from Iraq identified as Amir. A raped a 10-year-old boy at a swimming pool in Vienna. The man claimed to police afterwards that he had had a “sexual emergency.” The assailant was later sentenced to six years in prison for sexual abuse and the rape of a minor.