One night. Four stabbings. Four shootings.

Four men were stabbed and four more were shot in Greater Lisbon in a single night. It's Tuesday, 25 August. Twenty-four degrees. Air quality: 34 (Good). Here's what you need to know.

🗞️ FOUR STABBED AND FOUR SHOT IN ONE NIGHT ACROSS GREATER LISBON

The early hours of Sunday morning saw at least four separate incidents of serious violence across Greater Lisbon, leaving eight men in hospital with knife or gunshot wounds. The attacks were unconnected, but their concentration in a single night has sharpened an already live debate about public safety in the capital.

The first happened just after midnight in Sacavém, Loures, on Rua Pero Escobar in the Bairro da Quinta do Mocho. Four men were stabbed following an altercation that began inside a nearby café. Three are in a serious condition and were distributed across hospitals in Lisbon. PSP, the public security police, say the suspect has been identified by witnesses but remains at large. The weapon, described as a knife, has not been recovered.

Less than two hours later, at around 1:50am, a 30-year-old man was shot in the arm and leg during a party in the Bairro do Talude Militar, also in Loures. Friends drove him to the Camarate fire station before he was transferred to São José Hospital.

A third incident unfolded at a street party on Rua de Cabo Verde in central Lisbon, where around 50 people had gathered. A 39-year-old man was hit by gunfire in the leg and arrived at São Francisco Xavier Hospital at around 7am. Police later found a car parked on a nearby street with two bullet holes.

Shortly after 8am, two young men aged 23 and 26 arrived at Amadora-Sintra Hospital with gunshot wounds to the head, back and arms, sustained during what police described as a disorder in Cova da Moura, Amadora. Neither is in a life-threatening condition.

Portugal has some of the strictest firearms laws in Europe. Owning a gun requires a licence from the National Firearms Centre, part of PSP, including a background check, a mental health assessment and a police interview. Self-defence is not considered a valid reason for ownership, and carrying a weapon in public requires a separate, rarely granted permit. Handguns cannot be owned before the age of 24. The country has roughly 21 firearms per 100 people, compared with 120 in the United States, and a gun-death rate of less than one per 100,000. The weapons involved in Sunday's shootings are almost certainly illegal.

None of the incidents appear to be connected, but taken together they underline a pattern of nightlife violence, particularly around informal parties and in neighbourhoods on the outskirts. The Odair Moniz shooting by police in Cova da Moura in October 2024, which led to days of riots across the Lisbon Metropolitan Area and ended with the officer receiving a suspended prison sentence, brought national attention to tensions between communities on Lisbon's periphery and the police forces that serve them. Those tensions have not gone away.

No formal statement from PSP leadership, the Interior Ministry or Lisbon Mayor Carlos Moedas has been published in response to the weekend's violence. As of Monday evening, PSP had made no arrests in connection with the three shootings, and the stabbing suspect remains at large despite being identified by witnesses.

Bottom line: four stabbed, four shot, four separate incidents, no arrests. In a country with some of Europe's strictest gun laws, the weapons should not have been there in the first place.

⚡ QUICK HITS

Australia has paused work and holiday visas for Portuguese citizens. The Department of Home Affairs confirmed the suspension to the Portuguese business news site ECO, with the programme's online application page now showing "paused." Portugal is one of 23 countries affected. The subclass 462 visa offers 500 places per year for 18-to-30-year-olds to live and work in Australia for up to 12 months. The pause is temporary, triggered by demand approaching the annual cap, and existing visas are unaffected. The arrangement is reciprocal, meaning Australians can apply for similar access to Portugal. If Australia tightens its end permanently, the principle of reciprocity means Portugal could do the same, though there is no indication of that yet. For now, it is a temporary cap issue, not a policy shift.

The British company behind Portugal's largest solar power plant has entered insolvency. Welink Energy Portugal 2 UK owns Solara4, the 219-megawatt facility in Alcoutim in the Algarve, which has been operational since 2021. A report by consultancy BDO, cited by Expresso, says a combination of lower-than-expected output and falling wholesale electricity prices on the Iberian market eroded the project's revenues. The plant powers the equivalent of 200,000 homes. The priority within the insolvency process is to find new investors willing to buy the asset. The plant itself continues to operate.

Over €1.4 million in fake cash has been found in a bag by the bins in Porto. A homeless man searching for recyclable bottles to return through the Volta deposit scheme came across a bag stuffed with more than seven thousand counterfeit €200 notes. PSP confirmed the haul was entirely fake. Many of the notes were stamped with the word "facsimile" in plain sight. The criminal investigation division has been notified, and so far nobody has come forward to claim the bag. Counterfeit currency seizures in Portugal rose 300% between 2024 and 2025, according to the most recent internal security report.

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🍽️ SPOT OF THE DAY

SOI (CAIS DO SODRÉ)

SOI is a Thai and Southeast Asian street food restaurant on Rua da Moeda in Cais do Sodré, part of the Sushi Café group but with its own identity. The idea is Bangkok street stalls done properly in a sit-down setting: pad thai, green curry, bao, satay skewers, and a lunch menu executivo that changes regularly.

Chef Maurício Vale built the menu around the kind of dishes that taste best eaten quickly and informally, and the space matches: neon-lit, compact, with an open kitchen and a buzz that picks up after 8pm. The evening menu is broader. TheFork puts the average meal at around €18 per person without drinks, though sharing plates can push that higher depending on how far you go.

It is open every day, from midday through to 11pm on weeknights and midnight on Fridays and Saturdays, with a break between lunch and dinner service.

→ Find them here ←

Insider tip: go at lunch if you can. The menu executivo is better value than the evening card, and the room is calmer, which makes it easier to actually taste what you are eating.

A correction from yesterday: we wrote that Mammarua in Arroios occupies the former Boi-Cavalo space. It doesn't. That's Gancho, in Alfama. Thanks to the reader who flagged it.

📅 WHAT'S ON

See you tomorrow morning.

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