Regional authorities suspect an “attack” at the Christmas market in Magdeburg, Germany, where dozens of people were injured when a car drove into the crowd.
We believe this is an attack
a spokeswoman for the Saxony-Anhalt regional interior ministry told AFP.
A car drove into a group of people at the Christmas market in Magdeburg, northern Germany, on Friday, injuring at least 60 to 80 people, including several seriously injured
several media and emergency services told AFP.
A suspect has been arrested, local police said.
No details were provided about this man. The car that drove into the crowd for at least 400 meters through the Christmas market
is still on site, said a spokesperson for the Magdeburg police.
Chancellor Olaf Scholz expressed his shock following the tragedy.
The information coming from Magdeburg suggests the worst. My thoughts are with the victims and their loved ones. We stand with them and with the people of Magdeburg. I thank the rescue teams involved in these hours of anguish.
Witnesses reported several deaths, according to regional media People's voice. The authorities have not communicated an exact assessment: an incident
on the Christmas market, involving a car
did several seriously injured
a spokesperson for the Magdeburg emergency services told AFP.
The organizer of the Christmas market asked visitors to leave the city center, the MDR channel said.
An important intervention
The police of this city of around 250,000 inhabitants, capital of Saxony-Anhalt, speak of a importante intervention
underway on the Christmas market, according to a message on X.
NTV broadcaster showed numerous ambulances and fire trucks at the site, injured people being rushed to hospitals and rescuers installing aid devices for the victims.
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The attack took place at the Magdeburg Christmas market.
Photo : Associated Press / Dörthe Hein
The Minister of the Interior, Nancy Faeser, recently called on the population to be vigilant in Christmas markets, without mentioning specific threats.
Christmas markets are a ideologically appropriate target for people motivated by Islamism
had recently warned the intelligence services.
Germany experienced a bloody truck-ramming attack on a Christmas market in December 2016, claimed by the Islamic State (IS) group, which left 12 dead in the center of Berlin.
Series of attacks
Several Islamist-motivated attacks or planned attacks, involving foreign nationals, have shocked the country in recent months.
At the end of August, a stabbing attack committed by a Syrian and claimed by theNO left three dead and several injured during a party in Solingen (west).
In June, another knife attack, attributed to an Afghan during an anti-Islam rally in Mannheim, left one dead, a police officer who had intervened.
In September, a 27-year-old Syrian man suspected of links to radical Islam was arrested for planning a machete attack on German soldiers in a Bavarian town.
