An African man has been brutally stabbed to death by a gang of machete and knife-wielding attackers who ambushed his group of friends at a park in Melbourne.
Sudanese man Lino Atem, 24, was stabbed multiple times at Haines Drive Reserve in Wyndham Vale at about 11.30pm on Friday by a group of about 12 men who arrived in four cars and are still on the run.
Two other men, both 27 and from the same suburb, were rushed to hospital with non-life threatening injuries, and three other men, part of the group of friends Mr Atem was with, were arrested nearby.
Victoria Police Crime Detective Inspector Paul Lloyd said the savage attack was “instantaneous” and “certainly ferocious”.
“They jumped out and ran and started this altercation … into attack mode,” he said.
“It certainly appeared (as if) it was targeted. The way that they turned up, and just gone straight to it.
“The altercation went for about five minutes, during which edged weapons were produced and used on several people.”
No weapons have been recovered by police, but a smashed up hatchback was seen being towed from the area on Saturday morning.
Police are yet to determine a motive, but said they were looking into whether there was gang involvement.
Mr Atem’s brother, Atem Atem, 29, was shot dead alongside another African man Ayuel Akuei, 22, in the driveway of the family’s Wyndham Vale home in February 2023. A third man, 23, was shot in the chest and survived, the Herald Sun reported.
During the 2.30am attack three carloads of men in ski masks turned up at the home and shot dead Atem and his pit bull staffy cross, Randy, before running into the garage and opening fire on Mr Akuei and the other man.
His mother said at the time that the family had come to Australia from Sudan in 2003.
The savage killing of Lino Atem is just the latest in a series of African gang-related alleged murders to rock Melbourne, despite the left-wing Labor government and corporate media claiming for years that African gangs don’t exist.
In December two African men were charged over the alleged murder of a Burmese teenager in a gang attack, in November gangs vowed to take revenge after a Sudanese rapper was shot dead, and in July four African gang members were sentenced over the brutal murder of White Australian boy Declan Cutler who died of 86 stab wounds.
Header image: Left, one of the machete-wielding attackers (9 News). Right, Atem Atem who was killed in 2023 (Facebook)
