Two have been killed and 68 injured after a driver plowed a car into a crowd at a Christmas market in Germany
A driver plowed into a crowd of people at a busy Christmas market in the eastern German city of Magdeburg on Friday, killing at least two people and injuring at least 68 in what authorities suspect was an attack.
The driver of the car has been arrested, German news agency dpa reported, citing unnamed government officials in the state of Saxony-Anhalt. The suspect was not known to German authorities as an Islamic extremist, dpa reported, citing unidentified security officials.
Saxony-Anhalt’s interior minister, Tamara Zieschang, told the media that the suspect is a 50-year-old Saudi doctor who first came to Germany in 2006.
State government spokesman Matthias Schuppe and city spokesman Michael Reif said they suspected the act was deliberate.
“The pictures are bad,” Reif said. “My information is that a car drove into the visitors of the Christmas market, but at the moment I cannot say where it came from and how far.”
“As things stand, he is the only bandit, as far as we know there is no other danger in the city,” said the governor of Saxony-Anhalt, Reiner Haseloff, at a press conference.
Police and ambulances work near a Christmas market, where a car rammed into a crowd and injured dozens, according to a spokesman for the local rescue service, on December 20, 2024 in Magdeburg, eastern Germany. According to the emergency services, several people were injured “seriously”, said the spokesman. The death toll in the Magdeburg market has risen to two according to the Prime Minister of the Kingdom.
Ronny Hartmann / AFP via Getty Images
Of those injured, 15 were seriously injured, according to government officials and the city government’s website. It said 37 people were seriously injured and 16 were slightly injured.
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The sounds of sirens from first responders clashed with the market’s holiday decorations, including ornaments, stars and garlands adorning vendors’ booths.
Footage from the scene of the closed-off market shows debris on the ground.
The car entered the market around 7pm, when it was busy with holiday shoppers heading into the weekend.
Chancellor Olaf Scholz wrote in X: “My thoughts are with the victims and their relatives. We stand by them and by the people of Magdeburg.”
Magdeburg, west of Berlin, is the capital of the state of Saxony-Anhalt and has about 240,000 inhabitants.
The alleged attack comes eight years after the attack on a Christmas market in Berlin. On December 19, 2016, a Muslim militant drove a Christmas car into a crowd of people with a truck, killing 13 people and injuring dozens. The attacker was killed days later in a shootout in Italy.
Christmas markets are a big part of German culture as an annual holiday tradition that has been valued since the Middle Ages and successfully exported to many Western countries. In Berlin alone, more than 100 markets that opened late last month brought the smell of mulled wine, roasted almonds and bratwurst to the capital. Other markets are spread throughout the country.
German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser said late last month that there were no concrete indications of danger at Christmas markets this year, but said it was wise to be cautious.
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This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
© 2024 The Canadian Press
