Two Ikea shoppers stabbed to death in Sweden

Two shoppers were stabbed to death at an Ikea mall in central Sweden on Monday afternoon.

Police detained two men on suspicion of murder, one of whom had been seriously injured by the time of arrest in the central city of Vasteras.

"It is crazy that two people have been murdered at Ikea in this way," police spokesperson Per Agren said at an evening press conference.

"The two suspects probably know each other from before in some way," he added before denying any link between the suspects and their victims, a man and a woman who had been shopping at the mall.

Police questioned several witnesses and uncovered what they described as the murder weapon before announcing the arrests a few hours after the attack.

"I saw lots of police and ambulance vehicles. I heard from others that the whole shopping center had been evacuated after a stabbing," a witness on the scene told local newspaper Vestmanlands Lans Tidning.

The injured suspect, in his mid-30s, was taken to a nearby hospital after being detained away from the mall on probable grounds of suspicion. Another male suspect, 23, was arrested close to the Ikea outfit on lower grounds of suspicion.

Police declined to comment on the motive of the attacks but said the two suspects had no prior convictions. Endit