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A man knifed in an alleged racist attack in a Flintshire supermarket has suffered “life-changing injuries”, according to police.

The 24-year-old customer is still in hospital after the attack, which is being treated as attempted murder, in Mold Tesco yesterday afternoon.

Police confirmed an extra 11 officers are carrying out high visibility patrols in the area today to reassure the public of their safety.

Witnesses said they heard “white power” slogans shouted and saw an Asian man being chased down one of the aisles with a “huge” knife at around 1.40pm yesterday.

The store, which is usually open 24 hours, was shut off by police, including access to the petrol station, and some witnesses were still being interviewed at the supermarket more than two hours later.

A Tesco spokesman confirmed the supermarket reopened this morning.

Colin Cooper, of Leeswood, was inside the store when the attack happened. He said: “I heard a lot of shouting to start with.

“The next thing I saw one lad chasing another lad with a knife.

“It was huge — it was like something out of Crocodile Dundee.

“Even then I thought they were messing about, but obviously not.

“They called for security over the loudspeaker.

“Then 30 seconds or a minute later this lad was being helped by a couple of staff saying ‘get me an ambulance’.

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“The lad attacked was Asian. He had his hands in front of his stomach. I couldn’t tell whether his hands were cut from protecting himself or if he’d been stabbed. It looked to me like his hands were cut.”

Student Rich Fay was shopping with his dad and brother at the time of the incident.

The 20-year-old from Mold added: “We heard screaming on aisle two. Initially we thought it was schoolboys.

“It continued longer than we expected. My dad looked around the corner and we followed. You could see a man who by this time was being held by a man we’ve been told was ex-army. He didn’t seem fazed.

“In one arm the man had a knife and in the other I believed it was a hammer. I think they had tags on so he must have got them from the store.

“Then it was chaos, staff were screaming. We were told by staff that the person (injured man) was in the back.

“The initial shout was for everyone to leave the store. Because it was market day there was quite a lot of elderly customers in there.

“We weren’t asked to leave for a good while. We made our own way out after about 10 minutes.”

A 25-year-old local man was arrested inside the store on suspicion of attempted murder and remains in police custody.

DCI Alun Oldfield of Wrexham CID is leading the investigation.

He said: “Initial indications are this is a racially motivated attack and as such management of the community impact will feature significantly in order to provide public reassurance.”