A car plowed into a busy outdoor Christmas market in the eastern German city of Magdeburg on Friday, killing at least two people and injuring at least 60 others in what authorities called a deliberate attack.
The driver was arrested at the scene shortly after the car barreled into the market at around 7 p.m., when it was teeming with holiday shoppers looking forward to the weekend.
Verified bystander footage distributed by the German news agency dpa showed the suspect’s arrest on a walkway in the middle of the road. A nearby police officer pointing a handgun at the man shouted at him as he lay prone. Other officers soon arrived to take the man into custody.
The two people confirmed dead were an adult and a toddler, but officials said additional deaths couldn't be ruled out because 15 people had been seriously injured.
The violence shocked the city, bringing its mayor to the verge of tears and marring a festive event that's part of a centuries-old German tradition. It also prompted several other German towns to cancel their weekend Christmas markets as a precaution and out of solidarity with Magdeburg's loss.
The suspect is a 50-year-old Saudi doctor who moved to Germany in 2006, Tamara Zieschang, the interior minister for the state of Saxony-Anhalt, said at a news conference. He has been practicing medicine in Bernburg, about 40 kilometers south of Magdeburg, she said.
“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. "Every human life that has fallen victim to this attack is a terrible tragedy and one human life too many."
The 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 crowded Christmas market in Berlin, killing 13 people and injuring many others. The attacker was killed days later in a shootout in Italy.
Christmas 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. In 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.
German 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.
Hours after Friday's tragedy, the wail of sirens clashed with the market’s festive ornaments, stars and leafy garlands.
Magdeburg resident Dorin Steffen told 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.
“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.”
The 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.
“It is really one of the worst things one can imagine, particularly in connection with what a Christmas market should bring," the governor said.
Chancellor OIaf Scholz posted on X: “My thoughts are with the victims and their relatives. We stand beside them and beside the people of Magdeburg.”
NATO’s secretary-general, the European Commission’s president and U.S. Vice President-elect JD Vance also expressed their condolences on X.
“Our prayers go to the people affected by this terrible attack on a Christmas market in Germany. What a ghastly attack so close to Christmas,” Vance wrote.
Magdeburg Mayor Simone Borris, who was on the verge of tears, said officials plan to arrange a memorial at the city’s cathedral on Saturday.
After a soccer match 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.
© Copyright 2024 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.
26 Comments
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Fighto!
Rest in Peace to the innocent victims - simply enjoying shopping with their loved ones at Christmas time like hundreds of millions around the world. I hope the other casualties can pull through, but there are sure to be more deaths.
The suspect has been arrested - a Saudi man. Cowardly, hateful dog.
falseflagsteve
Another Islamist nutjob intent on destroying Western culture.
dobre vam zajebava
saudiarabian.you need to update your story.
bass4funk
Yeah, not even at all surprised by this
Hervé L'Eisa
Yet another infidel attacks innocent people in their own country. Disgusting.
GuruMick
Only a countries formal armed forces can kill innocent people.
wallace
There are less than 5,000 Saudis living in Germany. A tragic attack destroying Christmas for too many. Unusual terrorist. 50-year-old doctor with explosives in his card.
Bad Haircut
All that diversity is serving Europe well, isn't it?
bass4funk
Yes, and that’s just the Saudis.
Unusual???
wallace
There are thousands of Syrian doctors working in German hospitals. If they returned home there would be a crisis and staff shortage.
CaptDingleheimer
A car, huh? Self-driving?
Or rather, is the news media trying to avoid telling us WHO was driving?
Gee, I wonder why...
Starbucks
Or rather, is the news media trying to avoid telling us WHO was driving?
Try reading.
NCIS Reruns
I can't really understand the driver's motivation. If he doesn't like Christianity and wants people to convert to his religion, will running them down with a car persuade anyone?
Hawk
Um, "The suspect is a 50-year-old Saudi doctor who moved to Germany in 2006, Tamara Zieschang, the interior minister for the state of Saxony-Anhalt, said at a news conference. He has been practicing medicine in Bernburg, about 40 kilometers (25 miles) south of Magdeburg, she said."
Pretty widely reported.
Jay
KIDS are now dead as Europe is burns, and the flames were started by the suicidal policies of mass immigration and the woke, globalist elites who enforced them. A Saudi Arabian immigrant driving into a Christmas market is not just a tragedy; it’s a symptom of a continent that has abandoned its roots, its culture, and its people. The EU, with its open borders and disdain for national sovereignty, has turned once-proud nations into playgrounds for UNCHECKED MIGRATION and lawlessness. The Uber Liberal Globalists screech "yay for diversity" while families grieve, traditions are erased, and communities live in fear. Let me repeat, German kids have been killed as a result of this - what kind of progress is that?! It ain't... it's straight up societal collapse. Europe must reject the globalist agenda, protect its borders, immediately deport any immigrant who commits a crime, and reclaim its identity before it's too late... if it's not already. Family, faith, and nation must come first, or Europe will literally cease to exist.
itsonlyrocknroll
Media are reflecting political/sectarian contradictory reports assumptions, a number based on the suspect social media.
German broadcasters are being guided by a need not to inflame a German public.
Acutely aware that Chancellor Olaf Scholz confidence vote following the collapse of his coalition government, snap elections on February 23.
The situation is constantly evolving
wallace
The police have not released the identities of the two dead.
What turned this 50-year-old doctor into a deadly terrorist? Since 2009 he has saved lives daily. Today he took them.
u_s__reamer
Was the perp motivated by revenge and payback for the German government's complicity in the IDF's campaign of terror and ethnic cleansing of their Arab neighbors? If so, it will be predictably downplayed by the morally compromised German MSM.
GuruMick
Jay....read some history mate.
Migration to Europe and from Europe has a long, long history.
Or, are you really talking about recent Muslim immigration .....thats destroying Europe ?
A few short years ago it was African , read "black ", migration destroying Europe.
In Australia, it was "Asians ", who were going to destroy Australia.
Its always "the other " isn't it Jay ?
Someone not white, or not Christian.
How do "white Christians " stack up in any analysis of "destroying " other countries, other cultures ?
Not good would be my answer.
Random
Angela Merkel said open borders would change Germany…she didn’t lie.
Ego Sum Lux Mundi
This is a tragedy.
We see this every year. Every. Single. Year. Unless and until Europe returns to its roots and the invaders are repatriated, the slaughter will continue.
How is it even possible that the Bundeswehr just sits by and permits this to happen? How do the German politicians imagine they’re going to defend Ukraine from Russia when they can’t even defend their own people from foreign invaders?
Note that the perp is an Arab doctor.
falseflagsteve
Wallace
What tuned this geezer was his devotion to his religion that finds these acts acceptable.
Jay
What an ignorant comment from somehow who has apparently never been to Europe. Are you suggesting that both of these groups have been an overall positive? Tell that to the neighborhoods in Paris, Brussels, and Malmö that have turned into no-go zones, where law enforcement is met with violence and Sharia law is enforced in them over national law. Tell it to the victims of skyrocketing crime rates, from grooming gangs in the UK to rampant knife attacks and car burnings across the continent. Tell it to the welfare systems buckling under the weight of millions of migrants who contribute little but demand everything.
Europe’s culture, safety, and cohesion are eroding because of mass migration policies that prioritize virtue signaling over national interest. Pretending this isn’t happening is either willful ignorance or outright dishonesty. The evidence is clear: unchecked immigration has brought cultural conflict, economic strain, and social decay. If that’s not destruction, what is?
Oh yeah, the white Christian boogeyman! Let's conveniently forget that the freedoms, prosperity, and human rights so many seek in Europe were built on our principles you seem to hate. Meanwhile, the nations driving mass migration - whether through war, persecution, or economic mismanagement - are usually run by the very groups you claim are harmless. So yes, it's the refusal to acknowledge that incompatible values and a lack of integration are tearing Europe apart.
itsonlyrocknroll
Germans open borders, immigration polices, have directly contributed to these extremist acts of violence atrocities'.
It is an act of criminal incompetence that Europe with its Schengen Area encompassing 29 European countries officially abolished border controls allowing movement without risk assessment .
Coupled with undocumented illegal immigrates, extended families allowed to accompany legal migrants, societies communities fail to integrate. Groups become marginalised across cultural religious lines creating fear and mistrust.
Jay
And ok mate, we can talk about insane levels of immigration causing skyrocketing property prices that make home ownership unattainable for many Aussies, rampant land and business acquisitions by Chinese state-backed entities undermining our national sovereignty, and the infiltration of universities and political circles by CCP-linked organizations spreading propaganda and silencing dissent. And we can discuss the environmental destruction from resource exploitation driven by Chinese demand and the erosion of Australian industries through unfair trade practices. Where would you like to start?
You might not give a stuff our country is being sold out piece by piece under the guise of Chinese" investment,” while ordinary Australians are left to foot the bill and watch our country’s identity slip away, but regular hardworking Aussies like myself certainly do.
bass4funk
And your point?
Again, I wish I could say that I am surprised, but I'm not.
u_s__reamer
What tuned this geezer was his devotion to his religion that finds these acts acceptable.
WHOA!
Then ditto for all the geezers who believe that the acts of the IDF and their allies are acceptable to their religions.
u_s__reamer
What tuned this geezer was his devotion to his religion that finds these acts acceptable.
WHOA!
Then ditto for all the geezers who believe that the acts of the IDF and their allies are acceptable to their religions.