A knife attacker killed a two-year-old boy and a man and seriously injured two others in Germany on Wednesday, police said, and an Afghan suspect was arrested at the scene.
It is the latest in a series of deadly knife attacks that have rocked Germany in recent months, raising concerns about public safety.
The stabbing happened at about 11:45 a.m. (1045 GMT) in a public park in the center of the Bavarian city of Aschaffenburg, police said.
According to German media, the attacker targeted a group of children from a daycare center who were in the park.
“Two people were seriously injured, while two others sustained serious injuries and are being treated in hospital,” police said.
Police said the suspect, a 28-year-old man from Afghanistan, was arrested in the “immediate vicinity of the crime scene”, without indicating a motive.
The man was said to have psychological problems for which he had received treatment, German media reported. News outlet Der Spiegel reported that the suspect lived in a refuge center in the area.
Interior Minister Nancy Feser said she was “deeply shocked” by the attack.
“The investigation will clarify the background to this horrific act of violence,” he said in a statement.
After the attack police said there was “no sign of other suspects” and there was no further threat to the public.
The second person caught by the police was being treated as a witness.
Authorities cordoned off the park in Aschaffenberg, about 36 kilometers (22 miles) southeast of Frankfurt in the west of Germany.
Police said train traffic around the site was suspended, with services delayed or diverted.
The suspect tried to run across the train tracks, Sueddeutsche Zeitung newspaper reported.
-Shake it with a knife blow –
Germany has been rocked by several high-profile attacks, including the death of a policeman after intervening in a knife attack at an anti-Islam rally in the city of Mannheim in June.
An Afghan man was arrested on suspicion of carrying out the stabbing incident.
In August, three people were killed and eight injured in a stabbing during a street festival in the western city of Solingen.
The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the attack and police arrested a Syrian suspect.
The alleged Islamic motive behind the stabbing in Solingen and the suspect’s status as a migrant who was facing deportation sparked a bitter debate over immigration.
The government responded to the incident by tightening controls on knives, limiting benefits for asylum seekers, and handing new investigative powers to the security services.
Wednesday’s attack in Aschaffenberg comes as Germany prepares for national elections on February 23.
The conservative CDU/CSU coalition currently leads the polls with nearly 30 percent, with the far-right, anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany (AfD) in second place with 20 percent.
Both parties have promised to crack down on illegal immigration.
The Conservatives have also promised to impose a “real” ban on new asylum requests at the border.
In response to the latest attack, AfD co-leader Alice Weidel posted a message on Twitter urging “migration now”. –to use a term that the far right has adopted to call for mass deportation of immigrants.
Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s center-left Social Democrats are third in the polls with about 16 percent support.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
