that's the british prime minister theresa may giving a statement out in the middle of the night. then we can go to the leader of the opposition, the labour party, and a local mp it has to be said, jeremy corbyn, saying: there have also been words from the mayor, sadiq khan. of course the authorities in london dealing with so authorities in london dealing with so much in the last few weeks. the fire at the grenfell tower in west london, in which many people were killed, and of course a number of terrorism incidents. let's go to our reporter jane—frances kelly, she's at the scene and she's been speaking to eyewitnesses and we spoke to her earlier. eyewitnesses have told me that at

about 12:10am this evening a white van went down the seven sisters rd and they say it deliberately went into a and they say it deliberately went intoa group and they say it deliberately went into a group of people on the pavement. apparently they were helping an elderly gentleman that had collapsed beforehand. now, eyewitnesses again say they saw between four to eight people on the ground injured. we don't know how badly. and those people were wearing identifiably muslim clothing. many people had come out of the two mosques here, the finsbury park mosques here, the finsbury park mosque and the abu hamza mosque. they were attending last prayers, many came out to have a break, to have a snack. as i say there was a lot of anger because people feel they were deliberately targeted.

we can see a really quite large crowd on our live pictures, jane, people gathered around. are they getting information from the police oi’ getting information from the police or is it too soon? we're not at the moment but we will try to. it is quite a confused place at the moment, as i say, and feelings are linked very high at the moment because the neighbourhood, those in the neighbourhood, field the individual that has been injured we re individual that has been injured were deliberately targeted because they were muslim. we don't know that, that hasn't been confirmed, but that is the feeling here. jane, can you give us but that is the feeling here. jane, can you give us an but that is the feeling here. jane, can you give us an idea of the age and the sexes of the group down there? of course this was just after midnight london time, people were coming out from evening prayers. we're seeing a lot of men in our live pictures but where there are

also women, children, families? there were definitely young women, not so much young children but young women definitely who were around and very anxious indeed. we can see there is quite a big police operation on our live pictures, the police lined up at one of thejunctions. pictures, the police lined up at one of the junctions. can you give us a sense of the scale in terms of the response? there are lots of i would say... i can't see beyond the actual police vans here but there are at least one, two, three, four lands i can see. it's blocking the view actually. —— vans. there's a huge police presence here, they're taking this very seriously, they have cordoned off streets. it is being treated very seriously. people are ina treated very seriously. people are in a state of tension at the moment because of the terrorist attacks we've had in the past few weeks, and also the tragedy with grenfell tower. i think there's a sense of

unease and anxiety because itjust seems to be one event after the other. it does, yes, jane. iwonder from your vantage point, can you see the ambulances who were sent there to treat the injured. how far away are they from you? i can't at the moment but i did see various police ca i’s moment but i did see various police cars coming in and out, but i think the ambulances... by the time we arrived at the ambulances had already gone. have you heard anything about walking injured?” haven't. there was quite age and used state but apparently there were walking wounded —— quite a confused state. but we don't know numbers.” understand. from our live pictures, we are on the edge of a live crowd at thejunction, we are on the edge of a live crowd at the junction, we can see them looking in a particular direction.

what is it they are gathering around? there's the police cordon, they can't go any further, theyjust wa nt to they can't go any further, theyjust want to know what is happening at the other side. there are some people who just can't go home, who literally... it has been cordoned off and they aren't being allowed home while the scene is being examined and forensically looked at. obviously we don't know at this moment if it is a terrorist attack, we don't know, but eyewitnesses around here strongly feel the driver deliberately targeted those people because he thought they were muslims. we haven't had this confirmed, we don't know, but that is what i'm being told by eyewitnesses. as night turns to date, dawn has broken in north london. a large crowd gathered and still a large police presence, around 4.5 hours

after this incident, major incident happened in north london. —— to day, dawn. our correspondent james francis curly just then dawn. our correspondent james francis curlyjust then referred to feelings running high —— jane—frances kelly. that's come up with a couple of people we've been speaking two through the night and that's the frustration that this isn't being referred to as a terrorist attack —— to. they believe this man deliberately drove at worshippers as they came out of the mosque after evening prayers. the muslim council of britain says the van driver intentionally ploughed, that's their word, ploughed into worshippers near the north london mosque. that's very much the feeling down there. not something the metropolitan police have said but interestingly the guardian newspaper has reported that counterterrorism officers have joined has reported that counterterrorism officers havejoined regular police to help investigate what has

happened. that might be some indication of the way that this investigation is now going. earlier we spoke to a man named joey who told bbc radio london he was in the finsbury park mosque when the incident happened. i heard people running and rushing to come out of the mosque and they we re to come out of the mosque and they were obviously in some kind of panic. when we were outside people we re panic. when we were outside people were screaming terrorist attack and what not. i thought were screaming terrorist attack and whatnot. i thought someone probably came in here with guns or something, do you know what i mean? a man named joey talking to bbc radio london. you're looking at live pictures, one of the streets blocked off by police in north london during this major incident. another line from the muslim council of britain, they say that the van incident near north london is a violent manifestation of islamaphobia. a violent manifestation of islamaphobia. lots of the people

down there describing the van driving towards worshippers as they came out of evening prayers. we've also heard from the ramadan foundation, calling for unity, saying that this isn't a time for division. let's have a listen to mohammed shafiq. eyewitnesses i've spoken to on the ground say it was a deliberate attack against innocent muslims leaving the mosque after evening prayers. it's obviously ramadan so prayers. it's obviously ramadan so prayers in the evening normally finish around 12:15am when people we re finish around 12:15am when people were leaving the mosque, the muslim welfare centre, there was a lot of crowds leaving from the finsbury park mosque, which is around a five—minute walk, and a lot of —— the van came and deliberately knocked people over. obviously there is concern by the authorities that this is a deliberate act and an act of terrorism that needs to be condemned by all people. we mustn't

allow people to divide our communities, whether the threat comes from the muslim community or the far right. innocent people have lost their lives and we must contemn that. mr shafiq, who were you hearing, where are you getting your information from? elders from the mosque oi’ information from? elders from the mosque or people on the ground? i'm speaking to a number of people who we re speaking to a number of people who were there leaving the mosque, i've spoken to the chairman of the local mosque in the last hour to offer our support as a national muslim organisation. most of the information is coming from people on the ground, the witnesses saw the van coming towards them. it's shocking and people are very concerned. cani concerned. can i ask you what is it that's making people think it was a deliberate attack on them? i've spoken to two different people who said as they left the mosque of the van came towards people as they were walking on the pavement. as one of the... i suppose you were reporting

earlierfrom the... i suppose you were reporting earlier from the the... i suppose you were reporting earlierfrom the evening standard, one of the attackers left the van. again, a lot of unconfirmed reports but clearly the people on the ground we re but clearly the people on the ground were saying it's a deliberate attack. let me be clear, duncan, we must wait for the police to declare the circumstances of this particular incident and if it's confirmed it's a deliberate attack we should call it out. one year on from the murder ofjo cox we still face a threat from far right extremism and there isa from far right extremism and there is a perpetual cycle of islamaphobia that's on the increase and we need to call it out. i wonder if you would tell us about the people that go to the mosque, mohammed, people who aren't familiar with the area, that part of north london, who would have been coming out of evening prayers? the prayers usually happen around iipm, prayers? the prayers usually happen around 11pm, 11:15 p.m., they last about an hour, there would be people from many different backgrounds, many different communities, it's a

very vibrant community. many families will children who would have been at prayers in the evening. —— with. it's the last week of ramadan. so you would have found a diverse range of different people just going about their lives. what's sickening is how innocent people have been brutally killed tonight and our heart and prayers go out to the victims and their families. you say you've been speaking to people from the mosque, i imagine that they must be incredibly shocked right now? yes. pottable anger really. we've had to deal with the manchester terrorist attack and the london terrorist attack and the london terrorist attack and we spent the last week dealing with the grenfell tower fire and now this. one thing is very clear, our communities are resilient, we won't allow people to divide our communities and i salute the emergency services who were on the emergency services who were on the scene very quickly and provided support for the victims. obviously

from what i can tell there have been a number of fatalities and we're thinking of their families. as you said earlier, there have been so as you said earlier, there have been so many attacks, so many incidents in london and in manchester. an incredibly difficult time for many communities, now being felt i imagine in quite a tight, close—knit community there in north london as well? yes. it's very, very sad. people are hurting but we mustn't allow anybody to divide our communities. we stand with the police and the emergency services andi police and the emergency services and i think as events come clear in the hours to come, i expect all of us the hours to come, i expect all of us will come together, as we often do. you mention some anger down there, and we've also had eyewitnesses speaking of a bit of hostility among the crowd. is that something you're picking up? no i'm not. i think there's anxious people about, about

what's happened, but the immediate concern what's happened, but the immediate concern is for the people that have been injured and have sadly lost their lives. there's a huge police presence there and that is reassuring people. irony urge eve ryo ne reassuring people. irony urge everyone who is down there, everybody who is trying to get ahead around what has happened, to remain calm and allow the police to com plete calm and allow the police to complete their enquiries —— i really urge. as soon as they have more information about what has happened that will be released and i urge people to remain calm. in the few days we expect people to ensure there is no more copycat attacks, we can't allow people to divide our communities. that was mohammed shafiq from the ramadan foundation speaking to the earlier. these are live pictures. it is a:45am london time and that is a

street near the finsbury park mosque where this incident happened between four and five hours ago at 12:15am london time. the metropolitan police have described this as a van or a vehicle colliding with pedestrians, various eyewitnesses, the muslim council for various eyewitnesses, the muslim councilfor britain various eyewitnesses, the muslim council for britain and the ramadan foundation said it was a deliberate attack, one that targeted muslims. we can now speak to muhbeen hussain, founder of british muslim youth, he's been at finsbury park mosque speak to witnesses. on the ground? i think it must be clarified that this was outside muslim welfare house. in fact there's been some wrong reporting of this, and there's been some frustration on the ground. not really anger, just emotions are

high. with eyewitnesses that were there at the time of the attack, you can't confirm many things at the moment, but the idea that it was a deliberate attack is something that was on the attack. we condemned the attack as soon as it happened. we heard about victims and we have prayed for them, but going there, we saw there was real frustration, but also emotions were really high. people just witnessed that attack. that there is also solidarity which is quite potent. people are very thankful that the police are there and doing their duty as well. this is such an important time of year, of course, isn't it? it is. what we are seeing, it's not been a month since the manchester attack took place, and then we saw london bridge and borough market, and just days ago we saw grenfell tower, and this

is another attack that our nation is to face, and it's the time of ramadan, when people were going to the night prayer that took place. they went to pray and get on with their worship. this is not something many people wanted to see, and it's really emotional, actually, being there and seeing... sometimes... i spoke to people and words can't describe what is actually the feeling on the ground sometimes. do you think there was a sense that something like this was inevitable? we've heard from the muslim council of britain, saying islamaphobia has been on the increase. do you think this was inevitable, or is it still shocking nonetheless? of course, an attack like this is always shocking. you can look at this in two ways. in

many ways this was inevitable, and we expected it, because we've seen numerous times islamaphobic attacks, and they are notjust ordinary attacks. we are talking about verbal abuse to rio attacks on individuals which have been taken in retaliation ina which have been taken in retaliation in a sense after other attacks, whether that's been in manchester or london. those times, organisations like ourselves, and many people actually on the ground realise that the concentration should notjust beyond the retaliation the victims at hand, so there's not really been the scope to mention that, but it's been a real sentiment. people feel there have been retaliation is, and we've seen that, so in many ways this was seen coming by people, and that's why the frustration is high. i spoke to an eyewitness who said, look, we stand with manchester and

london bridge. this isn't about communities, this is about humanity and when we as a nation come together, and we also want to see communities come together and the nation come together. this is an individual who has been fasting throughout the day, went to the mosque — yeah, he hasn't left. he was very thankful for the police, very thankfulfor was very thankful for the police, very thankful for the solidarity, but there's been some real frustration in the early hours when the incident took place. we were really finding on the ground there was frustration from ordinary people on national media outlets. it's been covered now through all the networks, but at the time we were saying, where is the reporting? there is that sense of frustration, which was shown recently in grenfell . one of the witnesses told us the

police arrived incredibly quickly. what is the relationship like now on the ground between the police and the ground between the police and the community? i guess some people can't get back to their homes. in all honesty, there is frustration and emotion, but that isn't what i've seen on the ground. i've seen the relations, i've seen people speak to police officers, and when they speak to them, they are thankful. i've seen people hugging them in congratulating them for doing their duty. there's no frustration i've seen on the ground. that question on whether armed response turned up, that there was frustration, in fact, towards the media outlets. there was frustration to show that we need to highlight this as well. but towards the police and emergency services, ifound people were very thankful, and appreciated that they were there to keep them safe, and we spoke to eyewitnesses who have corroborated

that. thank you for speaking to us on the phone. hillary briffa lives on seven sisters rd and her house is next to the police cordon. i live on on seven sisters road, just down the street from where the attack happened. the cordon's just past my flat window. basically i got home around midnight and shortly after getting home i started hearing a lot of yelling and screeching and a lot of chaos outside. so i went down and ran out on the street to see what was happening. everybody was shouting, "a van's hit people, a van's hit people". and basically, there was this white van stopped outside finsbury park mosque that seems to have hit people who were coming out after prayers had finished. i didn't see the attacker himself

although he seems to have been arrested but i did see the van. the police started to ask people to move back so they could put up a cordon and we were pushed back along the street. civilians were quite agitated and shouting that this was a white supremacist attack and it should be called terror and people were very unwilling to move back and were very angry. the police were calm and kept moving people backwards to just past durham road, a bit further back down seven sisters road. i returned to my flat because the cordon is further along so i can enter and have access to my flat. i am watching everything unfolding from my window. about five fire engines have just pulled up. we're all feeling quite helpless and not really knowing what to do. i've just gone downstairs and helped handing out water with the food

market i live on top of. other than that, we're just sitting here in waiting for information to come in. it is after midnight in london but, as you say, if this was a mosque then evening prayers would have happened. how busy was it? i came home about 11:30. i don't remember exactly but i know that there was the call to prayer on as i was walking down the street, and there was lots of people walking towards it. finsbury park mosque is one of the biggest mosques in europe and there is a very thriving muslim community here. so it's very active and very busy. i came home and got ready to go to bed and then i started hearing all the noise. when i went downstairs, the street was full of people reacting to what had happened but i don't know exactly how many people had just come out of the mosque itself or who were there at the time or, like me, had responded after hearing the chaos and went down

to see what was happening. when people started to get a bit agitated and it seemed like there would be a scuffle erupting between some of them and police, i instinctively moved back out of the way because, obviously you want to make you do not get caught up in anything that unfolds after. the police were very professional, very calm and they recognised that people were just panicked and upset about what was happening. in terms of casualties, how many people could you see hurt? what kinds of injuries could you see? i couldn't really see much but i know there were at least three people, from the little bit i could see and the crowd had been pushed back, there seemed to be at least three people who were definitely seriously injured because people were being pushed as far back from them as possible so that the emergency services could get through. so i know at least three but i have a feeling there were more.

i imagine that if the people were friends or relatives in the area or at the mosque then there must have been people quite panicked and upset around them. exactly. there were women crying and just a lot of men yelling. there was a lot of yelling in what i assume was arabic so i could not understand everything that people were shouting. i can't tell you exactly what was being said but there was definitely a lot of... there were all sorts of people outside, there were women, children, young adults. it was a complete mix. i'm not sure what ages the victims themselves were. we are looking at pictures of the police presence on the road. lots of police cars, from the latest pictures we have received. what can you now see from your window in terms of how big this operation is? the operation is definitely huge. i am looking out my window so you may hear a little more noise.

just outside there are five police cars right outside my front door and at least 13 or 15 at the end of the cordon. if i look left can see the station and the entire road is backed up with police cars, ambulances — there were at least five fire trucks, the big ones, and, literally, from the station almost all the way down it is entirely ambulances, sirens, police cars and i know that the cordon is going off in the other direction because i know somebody who lives further down. they was messaging me telling me that the cordon is going down in that direction as well. so it seems to be a significant part of seven sisters road. that's in both directions from the

stadium. that was an eyewitness speaking to me a few hours ago. you are looking at live pictures from north london, that police cordon near finsbury park mosque, and that major incident that is being dealt with. we've had a few updates in the last few minutes. london police say one man was pronounced dead at the scene near north london mosque. london ambulance service say they have taken eight patients to hospital following the incident. so one man died at the scene. eight more people have been taken to hospital. in terms of the person or persons who are alleged to have carried this out, london police say at this stage there are no reports of people, any persons, having suffered knife

injuries. also a van driver, aged 48, injuries. also a van driver, aged a8, has been detained by members of the public and arrested by the police. let me just give you that update again from the metropolitan police. a a8—year—old van driver, who was detained by members of the public, has been arrested by the police. and that concerns something that we got from an eyewitness a few hours ago, that after whatever kind of attack was carried out, that this man was among the crowd, and it was members of the public who pushed him forwards to the police. the police now confirming that this a8—year—old has been arrested. contrary to some reports through the night, they are saying that there are no reports of any persons having suffered any knife injuries. nonetheless, one person has died at the scene, and eight people have been taken to hospital. those updates in the last few minutes. let's hearfrom

hospital. those updates in the last few minutes. let's hear from two eyewitnesses, fabian and muhammad. they were nearby when this happened. 0k, ok, we can't quite bring you that just at the moment, but we've been hearing from plenty of eyewitnesses through the night, and they have been without doubt that this was some kind of deliberate attack aimed at muslims as they were coming out of evening prayers. somewhere between the finsbury park mosque and the muslim welfare house, which is nearby in north london. witnesses describing a van driving towards people as they came out of evening prayers, and a number of people being injured. ithink prayers, and a number of people being injured. i think now we can go to two eyewitnesses at the scene, fabian and muhammad. a loud bang,

came outside, and this guy came at the front. he was cracked off his face. i saw people running left and right. it was chaos. one of them run out and the police came quick. thank god, they came quick. and they got two of them. the other is on the run, or they caught him, but a lot of people got hurt. it looks like it was towards muslims. he basically drove on the pavement, coming towards all the muslims, and as he is coming towards them, he hit all of them, and i think one of them died. one of them died straightaway. and the rest are in a bad condition. live pictures from this major

incident in north london that we are following on bbc news. if you're just if you'rejustjoining us, welcome to bbc world news. we are staying with a major breaking story this hour, a number of people have been injured in north london after a vehicle collided with pedestrians. one person died at the scene, eight people have been taken to hospital with injuries. a a8—year—old man, a driver of a with injuries. a a8—year—old man, a driver ofa van, with injuries. a a8—year—old man, a driver of a van, detained by members of the public, has been arrested by police. our news correspondent jane—frances kelly will join police. our news correspondent jane—frances kelly willjoin us in a few moments with the latest on what is happening. we can now hear from we can now hearfrom an we can now hear from an eyewitness.