A car plowed into crowds at a Christmas market in the eastern German city of Magdeburg on Friday, injuring 60 to 80 people in chaotic scenes in what authorities are treating as a suspected attack.
German media reported that several people were killed, but officials did not immediately confirm this.
Police arrested one man after the vehicle drove “at least 400 meters into a Christmas market”, leaving a trail of bloodied casualties in the city’s central Town Hall square.
NTV television showed ambulances and fire engines at the chaotic site, awash in blue lights with sirens blaring, as badly injured people were taken to hospitals and others treated while lying on the ground. Was going.
Screams could be heard as dozens of police, medics and fire services were deployed in the garbage-filled market decorated with Christmas trees and festive lights.
“We believe it was an attack,” a spokesman for the interior ministry of Saxony-Anhalt state told AFP.
Just after 7:00 p.m. local time (1800 GMT) as the market was packed with revelers, a black BMW drove into the crowd at high speed, news weekly Der Spiegel said, citing security sources.
“The pictures are horrifying,” said city spokesman Michael Reiff.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz wrote on X that “the reports from Magdeburg raise fears of the worst”.
“My thoughts are with the victims and their families. We stand by their side and by the people of Magdeburg. My thanks to the dedicated rescue workers in these worrying hours.”
The bloody massacre was reminiscent of a 2016 jihadist attack in which a Tunisian man driving a lorry killed 12 people at a Berlin Christmas market.
The Islamic State (IS) group claimed that a 13th victim later died of serious injuries sustained in the attack.
German Interior Minister Nancy Feser recently called on people to be vigilant at Christmas markets, though she said authorities had received no specific threats.
The Homeland Security Service Constitution Protection Office warned that it considered Christmas markets “ideologically appropriate targets for those inspired by Islamism”.
Germany has seen a series of suspected Islamist-inspired knife attacks in recent days.
In August three people were killed and eight injured in a stabbing during a street festival in the western city of Solingen.
Police have arrested a Syrian suspect, claiming responsibility for the attack carried out by IS.
In June, a policeman was killed in a knife attack in Mannheim, in which an Afghan national was considered the prime suspect.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
