Since the ram truck attack which hit a Christmas market in Berlin on December 19, 2016, leaving thirteen people dead and fifty injured, the German authorities are still on alert as the end-of-year holidays approach. Friday, December 20, however, around 7 p.m., a black BMW rushed into a Christmas market, mowing down passers-by who were there, near the town hall of Magdeburg, the capital of the Land of Saxony-Anhalt populated by 240 000 inhabitants and located 150 kilometers west of Berlin.
The man driving the vehicle was quickly arrested. The provisional report, Friday shortly before midnight, showed two dead and sixty-eight injured, some seriously.
Videos showing numerous intervention vehicles were broadcast on the social network X. Federal Minister of the Interior, Nancy Faeser, recently called for vigilance during visits to Christmas markets.
A doctor unknown to the police
Friday evening, the attack trail was favored. The Minister-President of the State of Saxony-Anhalt, the Christian Democrat (CDU) Reiner Haseloff, specified that the author of the attack was “from Saudi Arabia, practicing as a doctor” in the south of the city of Magdeburg, and indicated that he had “acted alone”. Present in Germany since 2006, the latter, aged around fifty, would have rented a car and driven it for at least 400 meters through the Christmas market, even though it had attracted a large number of visitors on this first holiday weekend. According to the German press, the man had an indefinite residence permit and was not known to the police.
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