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Nine children were wounded — six of them in critical condition — in the latest headline-grabbing attack amid that has stoked anxieties and led to calls for the government to do more to clamp down on bladed weapons.

Two wounded adults who tried to shield the pupils were in critical condition, police said.

“We believe the adults who were injured were bravely trying to protect the children who were being attacked,� Merseyside Police Chief Constable Serena Kennedy said.

The Taylor Swift-themed workshop was held on the first week of school vacation for children aged about 6 to 11. The two-hour session was led by two women — a yoga instructor and a dance instructor — according to an online listing.

Witnesses described hearing blood-curdling screams and seeing children covered in blood emerging from the business that hosts everything from pregnancy workshops and meditation sessions to women's bootcamps.

“They were in the road, running from the nursery,� said Bare Varathan, who owns a shop nearby. “They had been stabbed, here, here, here, everywhere,� indicating the neck, back and chest.

called the attack “horrendous and deeply shocking.� King Charles III sent his “condolences, prayers and deepest sympathies� for those affected by the “utterly horrific incident.�

Police were called shortly before noon to a street where several small businesses are located behind rows of brick houses in the city of about 100,000.

The first officers who arrived were shocked to find so many casualties from the “ferocious attack,� most of them children with serious injuries, Kennedy said.

Colin Parry, an auto body shop owner, said most of the stabbing victims appeared to be young girls.

“The mothers are coming here now and screaming," Parry said. “It is like a scene from a horror movie. ... It’s like something from America, not like sunny Southport.�

The suspect, who has not been identified, lived in a village about 5 miles (8 kilometers) from the site of the attack, police said. He was originally from Cardiff, Wales.

Ryan Carney, who lives with his mother in the street, said his mother saw emergency workers carrying children “covered in red, covered in blood. She said she could see the stab wounds in the backs of the children.�

“All this stuff never really happens around here,� he said. “You hear of it, stabbings and stuff like that in major cities, your Manchesters, your Londons. This is sunny Southport. That’s what people call it. The sun’s out. It’s a lovely place to be.�

Britain’s worst attack on children occurred in 1996, when 43-year-old Thomas Hamilton shot 16 kindergarten pupils and their teacher dead in a school gymnasium in Dunblane, Scotland. The U.K. subsequently banned the private ownership of almost all handguns.

Mass shootings and killings with firearms are rare in Britain, where knives were used in about 40% of homicides in the year to March 2023.