# Knife attack near Paramaribo leaves at least nine dead, including five children
Event date: 2025-12-28
A knife attack in Richelieu, east of Suriname's capital Paramaribo, killed at least nine people on December 28, 2025, including five children, according to police statements and Associated Press reporting. The dead included four of the suspect's children and a neighbor's child, along with adults who came to help during the assault. Two more people, a child and an adult, were seriously injured.
AP reported that the attack took place in the Commewijne district, about 25 kilometers east of Paramaribo, and that local media said victims were found at multiple homes. That detail suggested the violence spread beyond a single room or household and turned into a broader neighborhood emergency before police regained control.
Neighbors told reporters the attack began after the suspect, a 43-year-old man, argued by phone with his estranged wife. According to those accounts, the wife said she would not collect the children herself and would send someone else. Neighbors then said the man attacked his children with a knife and moved on to neighboring homes. Those details remain based on witness accounts cited by AP rather than a full police reconstruction.
Suriname's Police Corps said the suspect tried to attack officers who arrived at the scene and was injured during his arrest. He was taken to a hospital and was reported to be recovering there. Police also said a sixth child and another adult were seriously wounded and were receiving treatment at a hospital in Paramaribo.
President Jennifer Geerlings-Simons responded publicly, saying the attacker had taken the lives of his children and neighbors and offering condolences to the bereaved. The report noted that Suriname, a former Dutch colony with a population of about 600,000, has traditionally recorded one of the lowest murder rates in South America, though that rate rose sharply in 2024 according to Insight Crime data cited by AP.
The evidence packet does not provide a charging document or a completed police motive assessment, so the verified article stays with what authorities and witnesses supported at the time: at least nine people were dead, five of them children, two others were seriously hurt and the suspect survived after being injured during his arrest. In a country that does not often feature in the region's homicide headlines, the killings in Richelieu stood out for both their scale and their intimate brutality, with the victims drawn from one family and the surrounding homes that tried to respond.
