Vienna police are investigating the deaths of four women and a teenage girl within 24 hours.
Three women were stabbed to death by a man in a brothel in the Austrian capital on Friday.
The suspect was arrested.Another woman and her daughter were murdered in an unrelated incident.
Investigators believe the crime was committed by the girl’s father.
Activists dubbed the day “Black Friday” and called for urgent action to end violence against women.
The bodies of three women, believed to be Chinese, were found inside a building in the central Brigittenau district at around 9pm local time (8pm Japan time) after witnesses alerted emergency services.
Police said the suspect was a 27-year-old Afghan national who was found hiding near a brothel with a knife in her hand.
On Sunday, police said the man had “effectively confessed” to the murder during initial questioning.
The motive is currently unknown, and further interviews and investigation will be conducted in the future.
Autopsies on the bodies of the three victims will be carried out on Sunday.
Early Friday morning, a 51-year-old woman and her 13-year-old daughter were found dead in an apartment in the Erdberg district, about 12 kilometers from the scene of another incident.
No sign of connection.Investigators are searching for the woman’s husband, who is also the girl’s father, as they suspect he strangled her or strangled her.
“The initial investigation, which is ongoing, indicates it was a blunt force attack,” said police spokesman Philip Haslinger.
Eva Maria Holzleitner, director of women’s policy for the opposition Social Democratic Party (SPÖ), called on the federal government to hold an emergency meeting to discuss the issue of femicide in the country.
“We mourn the murdered women, are thinking about the survivors and call for a national action plan to protect against violence to finally be implemented in order to protect women’s lives in Austria,” Holzleitner said.
Claudia Frieben, head of the Austrian Women’s Ring governing body (OFR), wrote on X (formerly Twitter): “this day will go down in history as Black Friday with five dead women”.
Some 319 women were murdered in Austria between 2010 and 2020, most by their male partners or ex-partners, according to the latest data on Austria’s femicide rate published by the Conflict Institute.
The coalition government has vowed to tackle the problem, pledging almost €25 million (about 2.1 billion yen) in 2021 to efforts to protect women from violence.