MAGDEBURG, Germany - The death toll in a car-ramming attack at a Christmas market in the German city of Magdeburg has risen to five people, and more than 200 have been injured, many of them seriously, state premier Reiner Haseloff said on Saturday.
Authorities are investigating a Saudi doctor, arrested as the suspected driver of the car that ploughed into a large crowd of visitors on Friday night.
Der Spiegel magazine reported he had sympathies with the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party.
“What a terrible act it is to injure and kill so many people there with such brutality,” Chancellor Olaf Scholz said as he laid a white rose at a church in honour of the victims in the central city, part of the former East Germany.
“We have now learned that over 200 people have been injured,” he added. “Almost 40 are so seriously injured that we must be very worried about them.”
Police said the 50-year-old suspect from Saudi Arabia has been living in Germany for almost two decades. They did not name the man.
The man worked as a doctor in a nearby town, local officials said. Police searched his home overnight.
“From what we currently know he was a lone attacker so we don’t think there is any further danger,“ said Haseloff, speaking at a scene cordoned off and guarded by police commandos.
A Saudi source told Reuters that Saudi Arabia had warned German authorities about the attacker after he posted extremist views on his personal X account that threatened peace and security.
Posts on the X account, verified by Reuters, indicated support for anti-Islam and far-right parties, including the Alternative for Germany (AfD), as well as criticism of Germany for its handling of Saudi refugees.
The man appeared in a number of media interviews in 2019, including with German newspaper FAZ and the BBC, in which he spoke of his work as an activist helping Saudi Arabians and ex-Muslims flee to Europe.
“There is no good Islam,” he told FAZ at the time.
The suspect was Islamophobic, Interior Minister Nancy Faeser told reporters on Saturday. “This was clear to see,” she said.
She declined to elaborate further on the man’s political affiliations.
Germany’s domestic intelligence agency was not immediately available for comment.
The black BMW barrelled through the crowd at high speed just after 7pm local time when the market was filled with revellers.
Video from the scene showed the driver’s arrest as police with their handguns trained shouted “lie down, hands on your back, don’t move!” at the bearded man with glasses who was lying on the ground next to the heavily damaged car.
Police said the vehicle drove “at least 400 metres across the Christmas market” leaving a trail of bloodied casualties, debris and broken glass at the city’s central town hall square.
Ambulances and fire engines rushed to the chaotic site, which was doused in blue police lights and wailing sirens, as badly injured people were treated on site and rushed off to hospitals.
Cries and screams rang out as around 100 emergency responders deployed to the litter-strewn market decorated with Christmas trees and festive lights.
“The pictures are terrible,” said city spokesman Michael Reif.
Series of attacks
The deadly carnage recalled a 2016 jihadist attack in which a Tunisian man driving a truck killed 12 people in a Christmas market in Berlin, the country’s worst such attack.
A 13th victim died later having suffered serious injuries in the assault, claimed by the Islamic State (IS) group.
Faeser recently called on people to be vigilant at Christmas markets, although she said that authorities had not received any specific threats.
The domestic security service, the Office for the Protection of the Constitution, had warned it considers Christmas markets to be an “ideologically suitable target for Islamist-motivated people”.
Germany has in recent times seen a series of suspected Islamist knife attacks.
Three people were killed and eight wounded in a stabbing spree at a street festival in the western city of Solingen in August. Police arrested a Syrian suspect over the attack that was claimed by IS.
In June, a policeman was killed in a knife attack in Mannheim, with an Afghan national held as the main suspect.
The attack comes at a time of heightened debate over migration and security in Germany, which is gearing up for an election on Feb 23.
The AfD, currently polling in second place behind the conservative opposition, has led calls for a crackdown on migration to the country.
AfD chancellor candidate Alice Weidel condemned the attack and said on X: “The pictures from #Magdeburg are shocking! My thoughts are with the bereaved and injured. When will this madness come to an end?”
The Saudi government expressed “solidarity with the German people and the families of the victims”, in a statement on social media platform X, and “affirmed its rejection of violence”.
Police and firefighters stand next to ambulances arriving at a Christmas market, where a car ploughed into a crowd injuring more than 60 in Magdeburg in eastern Germany on Friday night. (Photo: AFP)
