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A car plowed into a crowd of people at a Christmas market in the German city of Magdeburg on Friday night, killing at least two people and injuring dozens more in what local officials said they believed was a deliberate attack.
Saxony-Anhalt state Premier Reiner Haseloff said police had detained a man originally from Saudi Arabia in connection with the incident, which he said claimed two lives and injured at least 60 people, including 15 serious, according to city authorities.
Haseloff said the alleged perpetrator, believed to be in his 50s, had lived in Germany since 2006 and worked in Magdeburg as a doctor, and appeared to be acting alone.
He described the incident as “a terrible tragedy and a catastrophe for the city, for the state (of Saxony-Anhalt) and also for Germany as a whole.”
“It’s really one of the worst things you can imagine in the context of what a Christmas market is supposed to be.”
Eyewitnesses told German broadcaster MDR that the car ran over people in the Old Market in Magdeburg’s city center, not far from its Gothic cathedral.
Images released after the event showed dozens of groups of people tending to the injured under Christmas stands adorned with decorations and festive lighting. Dozens of ambulances and paramedics attended the scene.
A spokesman for the Saxony-Anhalt regional government told the dpa news agency that “this was probably an attack.”
Chancellor Olaf Scholz is expected to visit the city of about 240,000 inhabitants on the banks of the Elbe River tomorrow.
“My thoughts are with the victims and their families,” Scholz said Friday. “We are at your side and at the side of the inhabitants of Magdeburg. “My thanks to the dedicated rescue workers in these anxious hours.”
The leader of the upcoming German elections in February, Christian Democrat leader Friedrich Merz, said: “This is very depressing news coming from Magdeburg. My thoughts are with the victims and their families. “I thank all the emergency services who are caring for the injured at the scene.”
The incident comes almost eight years to the day 12 people were killed and 49 injured in 2016, when a 24-year-old Tunisian rejected asylum seeker walked into a Christmas market in Berlin. The thirteenth victim of the attack, claimed by the jihadist group Isis, died in 2021.
The Federal Minister of the Interior, Nancy Faeser, recently asked to be vigilant when visiting Christmas markets. Speaking in late November, he said there was no concrete evidence of an immediate threat, but added: “Given the high level of threat in the abstract, we still have reason to be very vigilant and act consistently for our security.” .”
The incident comes as Germany prepares for snap elections in February, in which migration and law and order will feature prominently. The far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) is currently in second place in the polls.
The party won a historic first place in regional elections held in the eastern state of Thuringia earlier this year, and finished second in two other neighboring regions.
The vote took place shortly after a terrorist attack in August in the city of Solingen, when a Syrian national suspected of being a member of ISIS fatally stabbed three people and injured eight others.
The incident was seized upon by the AfD and the far-left Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW), who said uncontrolled immigration had led to an increase in violent crime on German streets.
AfD leader and chancellor candidate Alice Weidel said the images coming out of Magdeburg were “shocking” and added: “When will this madness end?”
