Christiane H., a 49-year-old Brazilian German teacher, is one of three women who were killed in a knife attack in the city of Würzburg, Germany last Friday (25).
According to the German newspaper Bild, she pounced on her 11-year-old daughter Akines when the assailant, a man from Somalia, assaulted them both.
An 82-year-old woman present at the scene removed the perpetrator from the child and ended up committing suicide, the newspaper reported.
The child managed to free himself and fled, shouting “I don’t want to die yet”, according to the newspaper. She survived with serious injuries.
Christiane and her daughter arrived in Germany at the start of the year, where the Brazilian would start teaching at a school in Würzburg, a town in the south of the country. Police said they lived on the outskirts of the municipality.
“The girl knows her mother is dead. The father is still in Brazil. All Akines wants is for the father to come here,” a friend of the Brazilian told Bild.
The crime took place last Friday when a 24-year-old Somali man attacked people with a knife in a shopping center in Würzburg, about 120 kilometers from Frankfurt. He killed three women and injured seven others.
The motives for the bombing are still unclear, said officials, who are investigating a possible terrorist motive as well as a history of mental disorder.