Germans on Saturday mourned the victims and their shaky sense of security after a Saudi doctor deliberately stormed a Christmas market crowded with holiday shoppers, killing at least five people, including a young child, and wounding at least 200 others.
Authorities arrested a 50-year-old man at the site of the attack in Magdeburg on Friday evening and detained him for questioning. He has lived in Germany since 2006 and practices medicine in Bernburg, about 40 kilometers (25 miles) south of Magdeburg. Officials said.
State Governor Rainer Haselof told reporters that the death toll had risen to five from the previous number of two, and more than 200 people had been injured.
Chancellor Olaf Scholz said nearly 40 of them “were injured so seriously that we should be very concerned about them.”
Several German media outlets identified the suspect as Student A., withheld his last name in line with privacy laws, and reported that he specializes in psychiatry and psychotherapy.
Mourners lit candles and placed flowers outside the church near the market on a cold and gloomy day. Many people stopped and cried. A church choir in Berlin, whose members witnessed a previous Christmas market attack in 2016, sang “Amazing Grace,” a hymn about God’s mercy, and offered its prayers and solidarity with the victims.
There have been no answers yet about the motive that prompted the man to drive his black BMW into a crowd of people in the eastern German city.
He described himself as a former Muslim. The suspect He shared dozens of tweets and retweets daily focusing on anti-Islamic topics, criticizing the religion and congratulating Muslims who have left the faith.
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He also accused the German authorities of failing to do enough to combat what he described as “Islamic Europe.” Some described him as an activist who helped Saudi women flee their homeland. He also expressed his support for the far-right, anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany party.
Haseloff said Friday that authorities believe the man acted alone.
The violence shocked Germany and the city, bringing the city’s mayor to tears and spoiling a festive event that is part of a centuries-old German tradition. This prompted many other German cities to cancel Christmas markets on the weekend as a precaution and in solidarity with the loss of Magdeburg. Berlin kept its markets open but increased its police presence.
Germany has been hit by a series of extremist attacks in recent years, including a knife attack that killed three people and injured eight at a festival in the western city of Solingen in August.
Magdeburg is a city with a population of about 240,000, located west of Berlin, and is the capital of the state of Saxony-Anhalt. The attack came on Friday Eight years after An Islamic extremist drives a truck through a crowded Christmas market in berlin, 13 people killed And many others were injured. The attacker was killed days later in a shootout in Italy.
Chancellor Schulz and Interior Minister Nancy Wieser traveled to Magdeburg on Saturday, and a memorial service was scheduled to be held in the city’s cathedral in the evening. Visser ordered flags on federal buildings across the country to be flown at half-staff.
Verified Footage was distributed to bystanders The German News Agency (DPA) showed the suspect being arrested at a tram stop in the middle of the road. A nearby police officer, pointing his gun at the man, shouted at him as he lay on the ground with his head slightly bowed. Other officers gathered around the suspect and arrested him.
Thi Linh Chi Nguyen, a 34-year-old Vietnamese manicurist whose salon is located in a mall opposite the Christmas market, was talking on the phone during a break when she heard loud noises and at first thought they were fireworks. Then she saw a car driving through the market at high speed. People screamed and the car threw a child into the air.
Trembling as she described the horror of what she saw, she remembers seeing the car explode out of the market and turn right onto Ernst Reuter Allee, then stopping at the tram stop where the suspect was arrested.
The number of wounded was enormous.
“My husband and I helped them for two hours. He ran back to his house and grabbed as many blankets as he could because they didn’t have enough to cover the wounded. It was so cold,” she said.
The market itself was still cordoned off on Saturday with red and white tape and police vehicles every 50 metres. Police with automatic pistols guarded every entrance to the market. Some thermal protection blankets are still lying in the street.
Christmas markets It is a cherished German holiday tradition since the Middle Ages, and is now successfully exported to much of the Western world.
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