Written by Andrei Sychev and Tanya Wood
(Reuters) – German authorities said that a driver rammed his car into a large crowd of revelers at a Christmas market in central Germany on Friday evening, killing at least two people and wounding more than 60, before he was arrested.
Rainer Haseloff, Prime Minister of Saxony-Anhalt, said one of the dead was a young child. The accident occurred in Magdeburg, the state capital, 150 kilometers west of Berlin.
“It is a disaster for the city of Magdeburg, for the state, and for Germany in general,” Haseloff said, adding that the death toll may rise due to the seriousness of some of the injuries.
Haseloff described the attacker as a 50-year-old Saudi doctor who is a permanent resident of Germany, where he has lived for nearly two decades.
He added, “In light of the current situation, we are talking about a lone criminal, which means that there is no further danger to the city because we were able to arrest him.”
The motive was unclear. The suspect was not known to German authorities as an Islamist, according to local radio MDR.
A Saudi source told Reuters that the Kingdom warned the German authorities about the attacker, who the source said had published extremist views on his personal account on X.
The Saudi Foreign Ministry condemned the attack.
Following the incident, police cleared the area around the vehicle to investigate the possibility of an explosive device, local radio MDR reported. Police were later quoted as saying that no such device had been found.
Local newspaper Mitteldeutsche Zeitung reported that a police operation was also underway in the town of Bernburg, south of Magdeburg, where the suspect was believed to have been living.
Police could not immediately be reached to comment on reports of a suspicious item or the operation in Bernburg.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who sent his thoughts to those affected in a post on the social media platform X, is expected to visit the scene on Saturday with Interior Minister Nancy Wieser.
As news of the attack spread, Elon Musk, the billionaire allied with US President-elect Donald Trump, criticized Schulz and called on him to resign.
A video posted on social media from a location above the market shows a car speeding through a crowd of people walking between two rows of market stalls. People can be seen falling to the ground and running away. Reuters was able to verify the location, as the trees, outlines and design of the buildings matched files and satellite images of the area.
Footage broadcast on local radio showed people wrapped in blankets on the ground receiving care following the attack.
Bild newspaper quoted a witness who said her name was only Nadine and that she was walking close together with her friend Marco when the car came speeding towards them.
“He was beaten and torn from my side,” Bild newspaper quoted her as saying, adding that he was injured in his leg and head and was taken to hospital, but she did not know where to find him.
“The uncertainty is unbearable,” she told Bild newspaper.
Late last month, Weser advised people to be careful at Christmas markets, which have been of particular interest to security services as a potential target for extremist attacks.
Eight years ago, Anis Amri, a failed Tunisian asylum seeker with Islamist ties, rammed a truck into a crowded Christmas market in Berlin, killing 12 people and injuring dozens more.
