At least two people are dead and as many as 68 injured after a car rammed into a crowded Christmas market in the city of Magdeburg, media reports said on Saturday.
Officials on Friday night described the incident as an intentional attack and announced that the driver had been taken into custody at the scene, an English news portal, Al Jazeera, reported.
According to reports, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz expressed condolences following an incident and confirmed his visit to the scene on Saturday.
“The reports from Magdeburg suggest something terrible has happened. My thoughts are with the victims and their families,” Scholz wrote on the social media platform X.
“We stand by their side and by the side of the people of Magdeburg. My thanks go to the dedicated rescue workers in these anxious hours.”
The interior minister for Saxony-Anhalt, Tamara Zieschang, identified the suspect as a 50-year-old doctor from Saudi Arabia who arrived in Germany in 2006. He was previously unknown to security services, the report said.
According to media reports, Magdeburg, a city with 240,000 residents, has established a market in a town square, featuring stalls selling regional food and drink.
“It’s a terrible tragedy. This is a catastrophe for the city of Magdeburg and for the state, and for German generally as well,” Haseloff said. “It is really one of the worst things one can imagine, particularly in connection with what a Christmas market should bring.”
“ It’s the last Friday before Christmas. It’s the tradition all over Germany that Christmas markets are places that people go to, especially on Friday night,” Kane said.
Kane added that the suspect’s reported use of a rental car would provide investigators an avenue to learn more about his actions in the lead-up to the attack.
“Obviously, there will be a record of when the car was picked up, where it was picked up and what documentation was used to get the car in the first place. These are all lines of inquiry,” Al Jazeera quoted Kane.
The suspected attack on Friday night follows an incident eight years ago in Berlin, Germany, where a similar car ramming occurred on December 19, 2016.
In that case, a Tunisian suspect, 24-year-old Anis Amri, intentionally drove a truck into a Christmas market in a major public square, Breitscheidplatz, the report said.
Twelve people were killed in that attack, and as many as 56 were injured. Amri was eventually killed in a shootout in Milan after fleeing to Italy.
