The attack at the school in Bistrița was allegedly motivated by racial hatred. School inspector: The attacker was looking for a student of a different ethnicity

The knife attack that took place on Monday morning at the “Ștefan cel Mare” Middle School in Bistrița, in which a female teacher and a student were injured, was reportedly racially motivated, according to the first information presented by the authorities. The chief inspector of the Bistrița-Năsăud County School Inspectorate, Vasile Șteopoaie, stated that the seventh-grade student, who came from Spain to Romania during 2019–2020, had allegedly been looking for a classmate of a different ethnicity who was in foster care.

According to him, the teacher allegedly tried to block the boy’s access to the classroom, at which point he attacked her with a knife, striking her in the abdominal area, after which he entered the room in search of the student. The footage captured by the surveillance cameras is to be made available to the authorities, and the inspector specified that the school did not have a strict procedure for controlling access to the building.