The carefree evening with family or friends on the Christmas market in Magdeburg, Germany, turned into a nightmarethis Friday, December 20. It is around 7 p.m. in this city on the banks of the Elbe, some 160 kilometers from Berlin, when a powerful black vehicle crosses the party grounds. The SUV then slaloms through the aisles “for more than 400 meters”, according to the police.
An “unimaginable” scene, according to the accounts of witnesses. Nadine, 32, is one of them. She was walking arm in arm with her boyfriend, Marco, 39, when the car hit him. “He was dragged and taken away from me. It was terrible”she testifies. Despite the tragedy, “no one” is screaming, she explains: “We didn't hear the car,” she tells Bild. Her companion was injured in the leg and head, but she had no news for a long time from the hospital to which he was taken. An “unbearable uncertainty”.
In the latest report from local authorities, two people died, including a child. Nearly 70 people were also injured, including fifteen seriously, the authorities also announced.
“Unimaginable”
“We saw the roof of the car, then it happened,” a witness told the television channel Welt TV. “Everyone was lying on the ground. Children, men, injured people. It's unimaginable.”
“It’s terrible. There was a corpse next to me all this time,” says his companion. “I thought I was just going to the Christmas market and such a thing happens. The world is sick.“
The city was plunged into shock at the news of this attack. A heavy silence fell in the aisles of the Fortuna Düsseldorf stadium, which hosted the Magdeburg club.
The party lights were quickly drowned out by flashing lights and vehicle lights emergency services and police in a constant coming and going to evacuate the injured. Images of visitors to the market, broadcast by local media, show people trying to help those lying on the ground between stalls adorned with Christmas decorations.
Of large white tents were pitchedwelcoming the victims not far from the sheds planned to sell mulled wine and gingerbread for the last weekend of Advent.
A city center transformed into a place of meditation
Giant Christmas tree, rides, ice rinks, nothing was missing for the party to be successful and fullfour days before Christmas, in the early hours of the school holidays.
The city center square welcoming the festivities will now be transformed into a place of meditationwhere Chancellor Olaf Scholz is expected on Saturday. The first bouquets of flowers were left by anonymous people, local media report.
And memorial service will be held in the main church of this town of some 250,000 inhabitants, located in the territory of the former communist GDR. “I don’t know what world we live in that someone would use such a peaceful event to spread terror,” one woman said.
The mayor of Magdeburg, Simone Borris, burst into tears in front of the press: “I could never have imagined that the city would be affected by such an event.” “I hope that after the mourning phase, we will manage to find a collective life againthat we will not lose the joy of living, she added, that it will simply be possible to continue to enjoy life.
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