THE machete knife is a huge blade which also doubles as an axe.
Primarily designed for cutting and chopping in farming, the knife is also used in violent attacks.
What is a machete?
In Spanish, the word machete is a form of the word "macho".
The broad blade normally measures 32.5 to 45cm long and three millimetres thick.
It is used in tropical countries to cut through rainforest undergrowth and in various nations for chopping and cutting in farm industries.
As a weapon, it is used widely in West Africa as a side arm.
In the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, East Africa, it was used by Hutu militants to terrorise and massacre people.
LATEST ON CRIME
When have machete attacks taken place in the UK?
Machete attacks are on the rise amid a surge in knife crime across the UK.
Met Police records show 37, 443 recorded knife offences and 6,694 recorded gun offences across the UK in the year up to September 2017.
A Freedom of Information inquest by MailOnline reveals that police dealt with 928 crimes involving machetes in the last two months of 2017.
This equates to an average of 15 attacks a day - or one every 90 minutes.
The findings show a dramatic increase from three years before, when machetes were used in only 100 crimes a month over the same period.
Here are just some of the horrific attacks in recent years...
- June 2018 - Nigel Davies, 57, was left with severe facial injuries after he was attacked in the street in Tredegar, South Wales.
- June 2018 - Two balaclava-clad men in a BMW rammed into a Toyota Yaris on a residential street in Birmingham before smashing up the car with a machete and a hammer.
- May 2018 - A man named as Elias Louisy, reportedly a Brit who retired in St Lucia, died after he was hacked by a machete-wielding intruder who broke into his home.
- March 2018 - A man in his 30s was left with life-changing injuries after an attack at a bar in Manchester.
- February 2018 - Sadiq Aadam, 20, was hacked to death in Belsize Park, North London, by a gang carrying the blades.
- February 2018 - David Pugh, 55, suffered serious injuries after fighting off four machete-wielding robbers, after they broke into his home and beat his 17-year-old son in Solihull, West Midlands.
- September 2017 - Student Saim Idrees, 22, suffered deep wounds after being slashed six times by a machete-wielding man wearing an "evil smile" mask in Manchester.
- November 2015 - A man in his 20s had his hand chopped off in a horrifying attack outside a celebrity nightspot in Loughton, Essex.
- May 2013 - Soldier Lee Rigby, 25, was butchered by two Islamist fanatics as he was returning to the Woolwich barracks.
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