Updated 10.20am

Two men have been arrested in connection with two Lotto booth holdups that left at least one person slightly injured.

The two robberies were reported within three hours of each other. The first one took place at 3.30pm at a lotto booth on the busy Triq Dun Karm, known as the Birkirkara bypass.

A masked thief, armed with a knife, put his hand through the booth's window to grab cash from the cashier, a 57-year-old woman. The cashier was injured as she struggled to stop him from stealing the money.

At around 6pm police received reports of a second hold-up at a lotto booth in Burmarrad. The thief had escaped by the time the police arrived on site. 

According to the 43-year-old cashier in Burmarrad, the robber was armed with a knife. She was not injured, but the robber made away with some cash. 

In a statement on Friday morning, the police said the armed robber was identified as a Serbian national. He was helped by a Syrian national in a getaway vehicle.

The men were arrested after police traced the van to a residence in St Paul's Bay, where the Syrian national was living. They eventually arrested the other man in Mosta.

Police and magisterial inquiries are ongoing.