Europe 1 with AFP / Photo credit: Peter MURPHY / AFP 18:08 p.m., November 25, 2023

Caio Benicio, a 43-year-old Brazilian delivery driver who was hailed as a "hero" for helping to subdue a knife-wielding assailant in Dublin on Thursday, said he acted "as any parent would have done". The man who works for the Deliveroo app used his motorcycle helmet to hit the suspect "with all his might".

The Brazilian delivery driver, hailed as a "hero" for helping to subdue a knife-wielding assailant in Dublin on Thursday who was suspected of attacking children outside an Irish school, told AFP on Saturday that he had acted "as any parent would have done". A five-year-old girl was seriously injured and remains hospitalized after the stabbing. It sparked the worst night of riots in the Irish capital in nearly 20 years, which authorities blamed on far-right agitators.

They said rumours circulating on social media that the stabbing was carried out by an "illegal immigrant" were behind the violence, which saw vehicles burned, shops looted and police officers attacked. Caio Benicio, who works for takeaway delivery app Deliveroo, used his motorcycle helmet to hit the suspect, who was attacking a young girl, "with all his might". The assailant was arrested at the scene.

"I think every parent would have done the same"

The intervention by Caio Benicio and other passers-by was warmly welcomed by Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar, who called them "true Irish heroes". The 43-year-old Brazilian, father of a 12-year-old boy and a 19-year-old girl, told AFP he doesn't really consider himself a "hero". "I have two children, and I think every parent would have done the same," he said.

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However, Caio Benicio was moved to have been praised for his courage by many Irish people, as well as by his children: "It's nice to make them proud." A 17-year-old Frenchman, an apprentice chef on an internship in Dublin, also helped disarm the attacker. Slightly wounded in his hand and face, he received a call from French President Emmanuel Macron on Friday to congratulate him on his bravery. Benicio said the riots that followed the stabbing attack, which drew nearly 500 people and showed the rise of anti-immigration sentiment in Ireland, made "no sense".

"They were targeting immigrants, I'm an immigrant myself and I'm the one who helped," he said. "I think it's a small group of people who don't even know what they're doing, who they're fighting for," the Brazilian added.