A man has been arrested over an alleged fatal stabbing in the Little Africa precinct of the crime-ravaged Melbourne suburb of Footscray.
The alleged victim, a 25-year-old man from South Yarra, was found with serious injuries behind the Courthouse Hotel on Nicholson Street at about 745.pm on Sunday.
He was treated at the scene by paramedics but could not be saved, and police launched a search of the surrounding area for his alleged attacker.
Victoria Police arrested a 37-year-old man from Williamton at Yarraville Railway Station at about 8.30pm on Monday, and took him into custody where he will be interviewed by Homicide Squad detectives.
Police said they believed the two men were known to each other.
The alleged stabbing is believed to have occurred after a dispute inside the pub which spilled out into a laneway, the violence erupting just metres from diners at nearby restaurants, 7News reported.
Local residents said crime in the area was out of control, and Azhar Habib from the Little Africa Traders Association told 9News: “I don’t feel safe, I don’t feel safe at all, especially walking at night.”
The alleged attack comes just under a year after photographer Dominic O’Brien, 62, was allegedly stomped and bashed to death by a released Zimbabwean immigration detainee in the same area.
In April last year police shot dead a Somalian man who charged at them with a knife, and two months before that a man was stabbed during a clash between two African gangs on nearby Albert Street.
Header image: Left, the scene of the alleged stabbing. Right, the Little Africa precinct (7News).
