MUNICH Five people have been killed in a car-ramming attack on a Christmas market in eastern Germany, according to German officials on Saturday. More than 200 people have been injured, including dozens who are critically hurt.
Shoppers had congregated Friday night in Magdeburg, a city of roughly 240,000 people west of Berlin, when the automobile crashed 1200 feet onto a crowd in a small alley.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz told reporters from Magdeburg that this is a horrible, awful tragedy and that we should be very concerned about the approximately 40 individuals who are gravely hurt.
He went on to say that in order to respond with the appropriate criminal and other repercussions, we must comprehend the offender and his motivations.
Reiner Haseloff, the premier of Saxony-Anhalt state, announced Friday that the suspected driver, a Saudi Arabian doctor who resided in Germany, had been taken into custody. He claimed that there was no continuing danger to the public and that the suspect acted alone.
The Magdeburg Prosecutor’s Office senior prosecutor, Horst Walter Nopens, verified the suspect’s first name as Taleb on Saturday.
Nancy Faeser, the interior minister, had previously described the suspect as “clearly Islamophobic.”
Without going into detail about the man’s political associations, Faeser stated, “We can confirm that.” “The probe will include everything else. We’ll have to wait there.
Regarding a potential motive, officials have not offered any other details.
Nopens told reporters on Saturday that four adults and a nine-year-old youngster are among the victims. Given the severity of some of the injuries, he did not rule out more deaths.
“The charges at the moment include 5 charges of homicide and 200 cases of attempted homicide and aggravated assault,” he stated.
According to Saxony-Anhalt’s interior minister Tamara Zieschang, the 50-year-old suspect first arrived in Germany in 2006. According to Zieschang, he last practiced medicine at Bernburg, which is roughly 30 miles south of Magdeburg.
She described the event as one of the worst days for Magdeburg and Saxony-Anhalt.
In an email to NBC News, the Bernburg psychiatric hospital’s Salus clinic verified that the arrested suspect was a psychiatry specialist who had been off-duty since the end of October due to illness and vacation.
The clinic, according to the spokeswoman, is a place for the protection and rehabilitation of addicted criminals.
A vehicle speeds through a crowd of shoppers, striking several while others rush for their lives, according to a brief video of the incident that was put on X and geolocated to Magdeburg. After racing straight ahead, the car turns right out of sight.
An eyewitness reported hearing a metallic scrape behind them before a car speeding at thirty or forty miles per hour struck a group of individuals directly.
NBC News’ international partner Sky News reported that Liam Clowes said, “Suddenly, you hear screaming and see a car.” The motorist has attempted to injure or kill individuals by driving through them without using any brakes or other safety measures.
According to Haseloff, the individual was operating a rental car.
A hotline was made available by the police for those impacted to call their family members. Due to “extensive police operations” in the area, they declared on X that the Magdeburg Christmas market was closed.
The mayor of Magdeburg informed Germany’s public broadcaster DW that a memorial service would take place in the city’s cathedral on Saturday at 7 p.m. local time. Additionally, a memorial site has been established near the St. John’s Church attack site.
Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs denounced the attack on X and conveyed “solidarity with the German people and the families of the victims,” without identifying the attacker’s nationality.
According to Matthew Miller, a spokesman for the State Department, the United States is “horrified by the attack.”
He wrote on X, “We stand by our friend and ally Germany and send our condolences to those affected.”
After Scholz lost a vote of confidence last week, the attack has heightened discussions over unchecked immigration in Germany as the country prepares for snap elections in February.
The anti-immigration Alternative for Germany (AfD) party won the most votes in a state election in September, becoming the first far-right party to do so since the Nazi era, when it won in Thuringia. This could assist form a new government in February.
Following gains by the extreme right in France, Austria, and the Netherlands, the AfD’s triumph in Germany is indicative of a spreading trend throughout western Europe.
After his anti-immigrant party won the most seats in the country’s November elections, Geert Wilders, the leader of the far-right Dutch Party for Freedom, has already achieved an unexpected win in the Netherlands.
In response, he described the attack in Germany as “another barbaric attack in Europe this time by a man from Saudi Arabia.”
“I ve been saying it for over 20 years: stop with those open borders,” he wrote in a post on X.
There is currently uncertainty regarding the suspect’s political affiliations, and his views might differ from those of many people who have already made assumptions.
The attack has been compared to a similar incident that occurred nearly eight years ago in 2016, when a vehicle crashed into a Berlin Christmas market, killing at least twelve people and wounding scores more.
A senior NYPD official told NBC News on Friday that police had stepped up security at holiday markets in New York City as a precaution after Friday’s attack sent shockwaves thousands of miles away.
More resources will be dispatched to various holiday markets and prominent sites throughout New York. According to the person, there has been no specific danger in New York, but there have been threats to certain markets overseas.
Marie Brockling reported from Berlin, Antonio Planas from Orlando, Freddie Clayton from London, and Carlo Angerer from Munich.
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