Eight children found dead in Australia home

Eight children have been found dead inside a home in the northern Australian city of Cairns, police said, reportedly after a mass stabbing.

Police were called to a property in the city in Queensland around noon on Friday after receiving reports of a woman with serious injuries.

“During an examination of the residence police located the bodies of the children, all aged between 18 months and 15 years,” a police statement said.

Queensland police detectives addressed reporters at the scene saying the injured woman was receiving medical treatment and was assisting them with their investigation.

The Australian Associated Press cited the woman’s cousin as saying the children were all siblings and the woman was their mother.

It said another sibling, a 20-year-old man, arrived home to find his brothers and sisters dead inside the residence, along with his mother.

“She is a 38-year-old woman I believe and it’s very, very early days but she’s in a stable condition,” detective Bruno Asnicar said.

“As it stands at the moment there is no need for the public to be concerned about this other than the fact that it’s just a tragic, tragic event, Asnicar added.

Australia is already in a state of heightened alert after police stormed a Sydney cafe early on Tuesday morning to end a 16-hour hostage standoff in which three people were killed, including the hostage-taker.

“The situation is well controlled at the moment. There shouldn’t be any concern for anyone else out of this environment and as we progress further we’ll be sharing the results of our investigation,” Asnicar said.

Al Jazeera’s Andrew Thomas, reporting from Sydney, said the incident happened in the suburb of Manoora, a low-income neighbourhood of Cairns.

“We don’t know all the details yet, but reports said it concerned an indigenous family,” our correspondent said.