Ukrainian kills priest, wounds four at Polish abbey

A Ukrainian man was arrested Thursday for killing a priest and wounding four others with a knife at a Catholic abbey in Poland in an attack Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky branded "evil" and "horrific".

Police said the 31-year-old went on a stabbing spree at the 17th-century abbey in Jaroslaw, some 30 kilometres (19 miles) from the border with Ukraine.

Lighting candles and praying in front of the abbey's gates, locals -- many of whom told AFP they knew the deceased priest -- described an atmosphere of sadness and fear following the attack.

"For such a small town, this is a heavy blow," Agnieszka Birek, a 41-year-old resident who knew the priest, told AFP

Memorial masses and rosaries were organised in the evening, attended by over a hundred residents, according to AFP journalists on site.

Poland, a close ally of neighbouring Ukraine, has taken in hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians fleeing Russia's invasion -- with some social tensions erupting in recent months.

"There was definitely a lot of hate speech," Mateusz, a high school student from Jaroslaw, told AFP.

Police in the southeastern Podkarpackie region said earlier in a statement that "at around 9:30 am (0730 GMT), the police received a report that a Ukrainian national had attacked men with a knife on the grounds of Jaroslaw Abbey on Benedyktynska Street in Jaroslaw".

All the wounded were taken to hospital, some with serious wounds, it added.

Prosecutors said the man had entered Poland from Germany and was headed for the Ukraine border, but instead went to the abbey, where he grabbed a knife from the kitchen and attacked clergy and worshippers.

Police said he had attacked four men and a woman. They told AFP one person had died but did not confirm the identity.