Two men have been hospitalised after a horror African gang machete attack in Melbourne just before midnight on New Year’s Eve.
Police and emergency services were called to Lygon Street, Carlton, at on Wednesday night and found two men with serious injuries from being viciously attacked outside a restaurant.
A group of about seven men armed with machetes and knives fled the scene in cars, and the two wounded men, a 20-year-old from Heidelberg West and an 18-year-old from NSW, were rushed to hospital with serious injuries.
Video here (graphic warning):
CCTV footage of the African gang machete attack in Carlton, Melbourne, last night.
Two men are in hospital, seven are on the run.
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Horrific CCTV of the attack shows one man of African appearance outside a venue talking to a man smoking shisha before walking away with a second African man in a white jacket.
Another group of hooded and masked males, all also of African appearance, then surrounded the second man, ripped his jacket off and appeared to stab him, while the first man was pushed to the ground and hacked at repeatedly by members of the machete-wielding group.
The second man ran off down the street, while the first man managed to get inside the venue, The Balcony Shisha Bar, and the group of seven then fled the scene.
Victoria Police North West Metro region’s Acting Assistant Commissioner Tim Tully said detectives were investigated whether the incident was “targeted” due to how the attacked unfolded, and reminded the public of the state’s ban on machetes.
“If you carry any edged weapon, without any exemption whatsoever, you’re going down three paths. You either go to jail, you go to the hospital, or you go to the cemetery. That’s as simple as that,” he said.
A witness said she was at a nearby juice bar when she saw one of the victims collapse in front of her.
“He was holding his hands to his chest and bleeding rapidly. He looked me straight into my eyes, like he was staring into my soul, and said ‘help me’,” she told the Herald Sun.
“I screamed for someone to get him an ambulance while we started putting pressure on the wound.
“I kept saying to paramedics on the phone, ‘what am I supposed to do? Help me, help me, please quickly, somebody get here quickly. He’s going to die, he’s just a young boy’.”
A co-owner of The Balcony Shisha Bar said none the nine people involved were customers, and said his staff helped the man who took refuge inside.
“It is a horrible situation that this keeps happening all over Melbourne, it’s happening everywhere,” he said.
Elsewhere in Melbourne a 15-year-old boy was bashed by three attackers on the Southbank Promenade and lost a tooth, while police made 18 arrests for various incidents including assaults, driving and property offences, and two people suffered fireworks injuries.
Melbourne’s CBD along with St Kilda and Geelong declared “designated areas” by police, allowing them to carry out weapons searches.
Header image: Crowds at the scene (9News).
