LAGOS, Nigeria. (Voice Of Naija) A 47-year-old woman has been arrested after stabbing four men with a pair of scissors in London’s busy Covent Garden district on Wednesday afternoon, in what Metropolitan Police officers described as a mental health-related incident that sent panic through one of the British capital’s most visited tourist areas.
Officers were called to Endell Street in Covent Garden, London, at approximately 12:30 p.m. local time following reports of multiple stabbings. Four men, aged 34, 39, 42 and 52, were found with stab wounds at the scene.
Paramedics treated all four at the location before transporting them by road to a major trauma centre. By Wednesday evening, police confirmed that two of the men remained in hospital with injuries described as not believed to be life-threatening or life-changing, while the other two had been discharged.
A pair of scissors was recovered at the scene near the Shaftesbury Theatre, which police believe was used in the attack, Euronews reported. The suspect was arrested on suspicion of possession of an offensive weapon and assault and remained in police custody.
The attack unfolded in one of central London’s most recognisable and heavily trafficked areas, a cobblestoned district packed with theatres, restaurants, shops and tourists at midday on a Wednesday. According to Sky News, Witness Matt Bishop, who works nearby, saw the suspect moments after the attack. “I didn’t see the stabbing,” he said. “I saw her running down the road towards the crossroads. She looked quite old, short hair. There was a bit of a stand-off with three police officers.”
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Bishop added that the woman appeared deeply confused during the confrontation with officers. “She was pretty incoherent in what she was shouting,” he said. “The officer was asking what language she was shouting”. A significant police cordon remained in place around Endell Street for several hours after the incident, with officers directing pedestrians and tourists away from the area.
Metropolitan Police detectives confirmed in their statement that early enquiries indicated the incident was linked to the woman’s mental health. They said they were not treating it as a terrorist incident.
Wednesday’s Covent Garden attack arrives against a backdrop of sustained concern about knife and sharp weapon crime in London and across the United Kingdom. The Metropolitan Police Service’s own statistics show that knife crime offences in London have remained persistently high over the past several years, prompting government investment in violence reduction units, targeted policing operations and school outreach programmes.
The involvement of a mental health dimension in the Covent Garden attack also renews debate about the adequacy of mental health support in public spaces and community settings across Britain. UK mental health charities have repeatedly called for more investment in crisis intervention services, arguing that police officers are too often the first and only responders to mental health emergencies in public, a role they are not always trained or equipped to fulfil safely.
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The United Kingdom is home to one of the world’s largest Nigerian diaspora communities, estimated at over one million people, concentrated heavily in London, with many of whom living, working and socialising in areas like Covent Garden.
The safety of Nigerian citizens in the UK is a matter of direct consular concern for Abuja. More broadly, the mental health dimension of the Covent Garden attack speaks to a challenge Nigeria shares the chronic underfunding of mental health services, the stigmatisation of mental illness and the absence of adequate crisis response infrastructure for people in acute psychological distress.
