๐ชThe death toll in the attack on a busy Christmas market in the German city of Magdeburg has risen to five, the state governor said Saturday.
โMore than 200 people were injured, many of them have serious injuries.
๐ชThe death toll in the attack on a busy Christmas market in the German city of Magdeburg has risen to five, the state governor said Saturday.
๊ฆSaxony-Anhalt Gov. Reiner Haseloff also said that more than 200 people were injured. Many of them have serious injuries. The incident happened when a Saudi doctor intentionally drove a black BMW into the market on Friday evening, as quoted by AP.
๐ฆฉAP has quoted the German Chancellor Olaf Scholz as saying, "Nearly 40 people are so seriously injured that we must be very worried about them."
๊ฆSeveral bystanders captured videos of the driver being arrested in the middle of a walkway as the police officers pointed a gun and shouted at him as he laid on the ground.
แฆThe other police officers took him into custody later.
๐The suspect was identified as a 50-year-old Saudi doctor who moved to Germany in 2006 named Tamara Zieschang.
๐The interior minister for the state of Saxony-Anhalt said at a news conference that the driver has been practising medicine in Bernburg, about 40 kilometres (25 miles) south of Magdeburg.
โ"As things stand, he is a lone perpetrator, so that as far as we know, there is no further danger to the city," Saxony-Anhalt's governor, Reiner Haseloff, told reporters.
๐"Every human life that has fallen victim to this attack is a terrible tragedy and one human life too many," he added.
๐The violence occurred in Magdeburg, a city of about 240,000 people west of Berlin that serves as Saxony-Anhalt's capital. Friday's attack came eight years after an Islamic extremist drove a truck into a crowded Christmas market in Berlin, killing 13 people and injuring many others. The attacker was killed days later in a shootout in Italy.
โChristmas markets are a huge part of German culture as an annual holiday tradition cherished since the Middle Ages and successfully exported to much of the Western world.
๐บIn Berlin alone, more than 100 markets opened late last month and brought the smells of mulled wine, roasted almonds and bratwurst to the capital. Other markets abound across the country.
๊ฆซThe violence shocked the city, bringing its mayor to the verge of tears and marring a festive event that is part of a centuries-old German tradition.
โจGerman Interior Minister Nancy Faeser 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.
๐งMagdeburg resident Dorin Steffen told German news agency dpa that she was at a concert in a nearby church when she heard the sirens. The cacophony was so loud "you had to assume that something terrible had happened".
She called the attack "a dark day" for the city.
๐ช"We are shaking," Steffen said. "Full of sympathy for the relatives, also in the hope that nothing has happened to our relatives, friends and acquaintances."
๐The attack reverberated far beyond Magdeburg, with Haseloff calling it a catastrophe for the city, state and country. He said flags would be lowered to half-staff in Saxony-Anhalt and that the federal government planned to do the same.
๐"It is really one of the worst things one can imagine, particularly in connection with what a Christmas market should bring," the governor said.
เนChancellor OIaf Scholz posted on X: "My thoughts are with the victims and their relatives. We stand beside them and beside the people of Magdeburg."
๐NATO's secretary-general and the European Commission's president also expressed their condolences on X.
เผบMagdeburg Mayor Simone Borris, who was on the verge of tears, said officials plan to arrange a memorial at the city's cathedral on Saturday.
๐นAfter a soccer match on Friday evening between Bayern Munich and Leipzig, Bayern CEO Jan-Christian Dreesen asked fans at the club's stadium to observe a minute of silence.