BERLIN: At least two people died after a car plowed into shoppers at a busy Christmas market in the German city of Magdeburg on Friday night, local authorities confirmed.
At least 60 people were injured, said Reiner Haseloff, premier of the state of Saxony-Anhalt, where Magdeburg is the capital. One of the dead was a small child, Haseloff added.
Police arrested the alleged attacker, whom Haseloff described as a doctor from Saudi Arabia who was acting alone.
“It is a terrible tragedy. It is a catastrophe for the city of Magdeburg, for the state and for Germany in general,” Haseloff said.
Police declined to give casualty figures and only confirmed a large-scale operation at the market, where people had gathered to celebrate in the days before the Christmas holidays.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said reports indicated something bad had happened.
“My thoughts are with the victims and their families,” he wrote in a post on social media platform X.
A video posted on social media from a position above the market shows a car driving at high speed through a crowd walking between two rows of market stalls.
People can be seen lying on the ground and running away. Reuters was able to verify the location, with the trees, outline and layout of the buildings matching archive and satellite images of the area.
Late last month, German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser advised people to be alert at Christmas markets.
Eight years ago, a truck driven by Anis Amri, a failed Tunisian asylum seeker, crashed into a busy Christmas market in Berlin, killing 12 people and injuring dozens more.
