Scores of people were injured and at least two people, including a small child, were killed on Friday after a car ploughed into a crowd of people at a Christmas market in the eastern German town of Magdeburg, in what local officials are describing as a terror attack.
At least 68 other people were injured, including 15 who were left in a critical state, according to the city government.
In the attack, a black BMW drove straight into the crowd at the Christmas market, travelling at speed for 400 metres in the direction of the town hall, according to eyewitnesses cited by the broadcaster.
Videos posted on social media showed a dark-coloured car driving into the crowds at high speed. Several media outlets showed the videos in their coverage, but the authenticity of the footage has yet to be officially confirmed.
Emergency workers were seen treating victims on the ground at the market, surrounded by blood. Makeshift tents were erected at the site. Witnesses reported hearing cries and screams. The operator of a food stall on the market described the scenes as “reminiscent of a war”.
“This is a terrible event, particularly now in the days before Christmas,” Saxony-Anhalt’s leader Reiner Haseloff, who was on his way to Magdeburg, said.
The driver of the car was immediately arrested, and later identified as Taleb A., a 50-year-old medical doctor from Saudi Arabia. Haseloff said the man had been living in Germany since 2006. The suspect, a consultant for psychiatry and psychotherapy, was recognised as a refugee in 2016.
Some German media pointed to the suspect’s past social media posts in which he reportedly expressed views critical of Islam and had even warned of the “dangers” of an Islamisation of Germany.
Footage from the scene showed the alleged perpetrator lying on the ground, his head raised, next to a badly damaged black car. A policeman metres from him is pointing a drawn weapon in his direction as passersby look on in shock.
“As things stand, he is a lone perpetrator, so that as far as we know there is no further danger to the city,” Haseloff said.
The suspect rented the car shortly before the attack, according to reports citing a security source, and was not known to authorities as having an Islamist background.
A woman who spoke to the regional newspaper, the Mitteldeutsche Zeitung said that the perpetrator had “driven deliberately into the section of the Christmas market decked out with scenes from fairytales”, where a lot of families with young children were gathered. She told the paper she had just managed to fling herself and her child out of the path of the vehicle.
After the incident, police cleared an area surrounding the vehicle to investigate a possible explosive device, local broadcaster MDR reported. It later cited police as saying that no such device had been found.
A police operation was also under way in the town of Bernburg, south of Magdeburg, where the suspect is believed to have lived, local newspaper Mitteldeutsche Zeitung reported.
Police were not immediately available to comment on the reports of a suspicious item or the operation in Bernburg.
“The reports from Magdeburg raise the worst fears,” the German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, said on social media platform X. He was due to travel to Magdeburg on Saturday along with the interior minister, Nancy Faeser, according to their spokespeople.
The German president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, wrote that “the anticipation of a peaceful Christmas was suddenly interrupted” in the attack but cautioned that “the background to the terrible deed has yet been clarified”.
Alice Weidel, the leader of the AfD, which has focused on jihadist attacks in its campaign against immigrants, wrote on X: “When will this madness stop?”
The Saudi government expressed “solidarity with the German people and the families of the victims”, in a statement on X, and “affirmed its rejection of violence”.
French president Emmanuel Macron said he was “profoundly shocked” by the attack, adding that he “shares the pain of the German people”.
Michael Reif, spokesperson for the city, addressed journalists near the market, confirming that the incident had taken place at about 7.04pm local time and was being treated as a terror attack rather than an accident.
He said: “The images are terrible. According to my knowledge, the car drove into the crowds of visitors … but from what direction and how far it went, I can’t say.”
Magdeburg’s mayor Regina-Dolores Stieler-Hinz said at least one person had died and more than 50 were injured. Emergency services said that the number might be up to 80.
Hospitals within a 50-mile (80km) radius of Magdeburg were geared up to take patients, while all the region’s emergency helicopters were deployed to the incident.
A witness identified as Nadine, 32, from Wolfsburg, told the tabloid Bild she was looking for her boyfriend Marco, who was torn from her side when the car raced into the crowds. “He was hit by the car and ripped away from me,” she said. “It was terrible. No one even screamed. I didn’t even hear the car.” Marco received injuries to his head and leg, she said. “We don’t know in what hospital he’s been sent to. The uncertainty is unbearable”.
Security experts said they were astounded that the man was able to drive into the market despite the heavy-set bollards which had been installed to prevent such an attack.
Hans-Jakob Schindler, a terrorist expert, told German media: “In the first instance it’s a surprise that a vehicle of that size was able to drive onto a Christmas market in Germany.”
Germany is home to an estimated 2,500 to 3,000 Christmas markets which are hosted around the country for about a month, from the end of November to just after Christmas.
Keeping the markets secure has been a major issue ever since 2016 when an Islamist extremist attacker drove a truck into a crowd of Christmas market-goers in Berlin, leaving 13 people dead and dozens more injured. The attacker was killed days later in a shootout in Italy.
Faeser had said late last month that there were no concrete indications of a danger to Christmas markets this year, but that it was wise to be vigilant. Many Christmas markets, including the one on Breitscheidplatz in Berlin, which was the target of the attack in 2016, have installed extra security including traffic bollards, in an attempt to prevent it from happening again.
Germany has in recent times also 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, which was claimed by IS.
In June, a police officer was killed in a knife attack in Mannheim, with an Afghan national held as the main suspect.
On Friday night the Facebook page of the Magdeburg market carried the message: “The Christmas market is now closed for today. We ask for your understanding.”
