German Chancellor Olaf Scholz reports that five people have been killed and over 200 injured in a car-ramming at a Christmas market in Magdeburg, Germany, reports RTE.
According to Magdeburg municipal official Ronni Krug, four adults and a nine-year-old kid were murdered, and 41 people were injured, with 41 of them suffering from serious or critical injuries.
On suspicion of smashing his automobile into the throng, a Saudi man was taken into custody.
“What a terrible act it is to injure and kill so many people there with such brutality,” Mr. Scholz told reporters at the market, reports RTE.
“We have now learnt that over 200 people have been injured,” he added. “Almost 40 are so seriously injured that we must be very worried about them,” reports RTE.
In response to “the terrible attack that injured and killed so many people,” he promised that Germany will act “with the full force of the law.”
The chancellor travelled to Magdeburg to express his condolences and solidarity with the assault victims, reports RTE.
He has urged the country to unite in the fight against bigotry.
The incident last evening, which occurred during an election campaign in Europe’s largest economy where the extreme right is polling well, left scores of people injured and came amid intense discussion over migration and security.
A 50-year-old Saudi physician who has resided in Germany for over 20 years is being investigated by German police in relation to the car-ramming. Overnight, police raided his house.
Police have not yet identified the culprit, and the motive is yet unknown. The German media has referred to him as Taleb A, reports RTE.
After the attacker expressed extremist beliefs that endangered peace and security on his personal X account, Saudi Arabia alerted German police about him, a Saudi source told Reuters.
The suspect has sympathies for the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, according to Der Spiegel. The source of the information was not disclosed by the publication.
Regarding the current inquiry, Germany’s domestic intelligence service chose not to comment, reports RTE.
According to the German daily FAZ, the suspect was interrogated in 2019 and described as an anti-Islamic activist.
“People like me, who have an Islamic background but are no longer believers, are met with neither understanding nor tolerance by Muslims here,” he was said to have stated. “I am the most outspoken opponent of Islam in history. Ask the Arabs if you don’t believe me.
After visiting the market yesterday, Andrea Reis came back today with her daughter Julia to light a candle beside the chapel that looks out over the area. They may have been in the car’s path if it weren’t for a few seconds, she claimed, reports RTE.
“I said, ‘let’s go and get a sausage’, but my daughter said ‘no let’s keep walking around’. If we’d stayed where we were we’d have been in the car’s path,” she said.
Tears ran down her face as she described the scene. “Children screaming, crying for mama. You can’t forget that,” she said.
Many local and national officials joined the German Chancellor as he visited the attack scene, reports RTE.
Outside of the main church, they placed flowers.
Ahead of the February 23 snap elections, Mr. Scholtz’s Social Democrats are lagging behind the far-right AfD and the leading conservative opposition in surveys.
Calls for a curb on immigration to the nation have been spearheaded by the AfD, reports RTE.
Both Alice Weidel, its candidate for chancellor, and Tino Chrupalla, its co-leader, condemned the attack in a statement.
“The terrible attack on the Christmas market in Magdeburg in the middle of the peaceful pre-Christmas period has shaken us,” they said, reports RTE.
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