Boy, 11, stabbed to death while playing football in Spain

Spanish police have arrested a 20-year old man in connection with the murder of an 11-year-old boy who was stabbed by a masked assailant while he played football with friends.
Police sources told local media that the man is Spanish and his father and grandmother live in the Mocejón, near the city of Toledo, where the murder was committed.
The child, who has been named as Mateo and whose family run a bakery, was selected at random by the assailant, witnesses said. The killer approached the group “with a calm attitude”.
“The children thought it was a kid who approached with the intention of playing with them,” a neighbour said. For no apparent reason, the assailant, whose face was covered with a handkerchief, produced a weapon and pounced on the children.
Mateo stumbled during his escape and was caught by the killer who “went on a rampage” and did not stop stabbing the boy, sources close to the investigation told the news website El Español.
Mateo suffered multiple wounds to his abdomen and thorax. At that moment, adults attending a padel tennis tournament near by heard screams from the children. “They’ve killed my best friend” said one of the children.
Relatives of the murdered boy were quick to arrive on the scene, finding Mateo’s body lying by the side of the football pitch. Moments later an ambulance arrived but after several resuscitation attempts the child was declared dead at the scene.
Three days of mourning were declared by the town’s authorities on Sunday evening after more than 300 people gathered in the main square for a minute’s silence.
Asell Sánchez, a cousin of the victim, said: “He was a very good boy, very affectionate. He was with his friends playing, someone arrived, we have no more information. These are difficult moments that we can’t assimilate, we are still in shock.”
Mocejón, a town of 5,000 people, had never experienced anything like this before, Sanchez added.
The killer immediately fled the same way he had entered, through a gap in a wire fence surrounding the municipal sports centre. He was seen making his escape in a dark grey Ford Mondeo.
Santiago Abascal, the leader of the populist right-wing Vox party, posted on social media that Spain was turning into an “unrecognisable and dangerous country for all generations without distinction, whether they are the youngest or our elders”.
Emiliano García-Page, the president of the Castilla-La Mancha region, said he was shocked by the events and hoped the perpetrator was found soon. “These situations are unacceptable and must result in a just punishment,” he said.