Bondi Junction shopping centre will reopen today for a community reflection day before resuming normal trading hours from Friday. Meanwhile, six victims from the stabbing attack remain in hospital, with two women in ICU.

Bondi

Bondi Junction shopping centre is set to reopen its doors for a day dedicated to community reflection following an incident that took place prior. This day is intended to offer the community a chance to come together before the shopping centre resumes its standard operating hours starting Friday. In connection with the event leading to the closure, six individuals who were victims of a stabbing attack are currently receiving medical treatment in the hospital. Among them, two women are in intensive care.



Shopping centre to reopen for community reflection

Westfield says it wants to reopen in a way that is respectful to victims' families as well as the many shoppers and retail staff who were at the centre on Sunday. Now it will open its doors for the first time since the attacks tomorrow for a day of community reflection. The shops will be closed, the centre will be quiet and it's an opportunity for the community to come inside and remember those who died. There'll be a place for them to lay flowers and pay their respects. There will be counsellors on hand as well as extra security and police. Now the victims' families have already been given the opportunity to come down and spend some time in private in the place where their relatives died. Not all of them have taken up that offer, but the chief executive of the group that runs Westfield says that he was there with some of those family members yesterday. I was with those families yesterday. It was a very emotional experience. We have been very considerate in our plans to reopen the centre in a way that is respectful to the victims, their families and all in the community who are grieving. Tomorrow, Thursday the 18th of April, the centre will open as a community reflection day. There will be no retail trade tomorrow. Instead, the centre will be open for members of the community to visit the centre, to walk through the centre and to pay their respects. After tomorrow's day of reflection, the shops will begin to gradually reopen from Friday, although Westfield says that not all shops will choose to do so immediately. The centre will remain in what's called quiet mode and again there will be extra security in place. So it's very much aimed to be a slow and respectful return rather than just business as usual after Sunday's terrible tragedy.

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