Police now say four people were stabbed in central Amsterdam on Thursday afternoon, after the suspect was included in the original total of five.

More details are now emerging about what happened in the heart of the old city although police have not yet commented on the attacker’s identity or motive.

The four victims include a young woman, an older woman, and two others, according to local media reports.

One eyewitness told RTL that he had seen a young woman slump, saying she had been pushed, and then noticed the knife in her back. Another woman, possibly an American tourist, shouted to passersby to call an ambulance.

Another woman who saw the stabbing fled into the Flagship Bike Tours on the Nieuwezijds Voorburgwal. Owner Lodewijk Helmer said: “There was a woman who saw it happen. She fled in here and we gave her shelter.”

His colleague Mirna Arnods said: “She told me that he had a cap on and a hoody – you couldn’t see anything [of his face]. There was a woman lying on the ground. The girl said she got stabbed in the shoulder.”

Two lads told AT5 their friend had seen a girl being stabbed at close hand. “A nutcase was behind him and then stabbed a woman. It might as well have been our friend,” one said.

Ambulances were understood to have arrived in force within minutes.

Arrested

The suspect was arrested in the nearby Gravenstraat with the help of a passerby, who sat on him until police arrived, according to the Parool.

He has been taken to hospital for treatment for a leg injury and has not yet been questioned. Police have not released any information about him or a possible motive.

Much of the area around the Dam was closed off for a time, and an air ambulance landed in front of the palace. Police now say a small area is still being checked by forensic scientists.

At least one of the victims was stabbed outside a fabric shop on the Nieuwezijds Voorburgwal, next to the Nieuwe Kerk, according to the Parool.

“I heard a knock,” one of the shop workers told the paper. “Then I saw a girl had been stabbed in the back, and a boy ran off.”

A worker at the De 3 Fleschjes bar told the paper that customers had seen an older woman being stabbed in the back before she fell to the ground.

Police have appealed for anyone with footage of the incident to get in touch.

Mental health issues

After seven fatal stabbings by mentally-ill people last year, Amsterdam recently launched a single reporting point – to try to identify confused individuals in time to help them.

Amsterdam mayor Femke Halsema said at the time people are slipping through the gaps in the overloaded mental health system, including dramatically more people who have become homeless and jobless after coronavirus.