December 20, 2024, 10:07 PM
December 20, 2024, 10:07 PM
At least two people were killed and dozens injured after a car plowed into a crowd at a Christmas market in the German city of Magdeburg.
Police in the city located about 130 kilometers from Berlin reported that about 60 people were injured, 15 of them with serious injuries.
The German Chancellor Olaf Scholzpointed out that the first reports he received make him “fear the worst.”
“My thoughts are with the victims and their loved ones. We are with them and with all the inhabitants of Magdeburg. My thanks to all the emergency services in these difficult hours,” he said on his X account.
Saxony’s Prime Minister Michael Kretschmer said it was a man in his 50s arrested as a suspect. He is a doctor originally from Saudi Arabia who arrived in Germany in 2006. It is presumed that he acted alone.
Images broadcast by German broadcaster MDR showed several officers confronting a man lying on the ground. Pointing their weapons at him, they ordered him not to move.
The first reports said that a car, apparently a black BMW, advanced about 400 meters above the crowd at the Christmas market.
Witnesses stated that the vehicle involved in the accident He went straight to where the passers-by were.
Unverified images shared on social networks showed several people lying on the ground after the accident.
Nadine, a 32-year-old woman who was in the market, said that she was hugging her boyfriend Marco when the car sped towards them, hitting her partner.
“It hit him and he flew away from me. It was terrible,” he told German newspaper Bild. His partner was injured in the leg and head and was taken to a hospital.
“The uncertainty is unbearable”Nadine said.
Reporter Lars Frohmüller, from the German broadcaster MDR, told the BBC that he found a scene of chaos when he arrived at the market.
“We saw blood on the ground, we saw people sitting next to each other and wrapped in gold and silver protectors. And we saw a lot of doctors trying to keep people warm and tend to their wounds,” he explains.
“Everywhere there were ambulances, police and many firefighters.”
Magdeburg is an hour and a half drive from the capital, Berlin. It is the capital of the state of Saxony-Anhalt and is located on the banks of the Elbe River, with a population of about 240,000 inhabitants.
The annual Christmas market is a major tourist attraction for the city.
Many Germans have bad memories of a similar incident that occurred in December 2016said BBC News Berlin correspondent Jessica Parker.
On that occasion, an Islamist extremist crashed a truck into a Christmas market in Berlin.
Twelve people died, while a lifeguard, who was seriously injured, also died years later. In the days after the initial tragedy, the attacker fled to Italy, where he was shot dead by police.
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