The driver of the car was arrested, German news agency dpa reported, citing unidentified government officials in the state of Saxony-Anhalt. Regional government spokesperson Matthias Schuppe and city spokesperson Michael Reif said they suspected it was a deliberate act.
Police arresting the Attacker 50-year-old Saudi doctor in Magdeburg, Germany#Terroristattack #Germany #Magdeburg #Weihnachtsmarkt #MagdeburgAttack #MagdeburgerWeihnachtsmarkt #festundflauschig pic.twitter.com/JO1nuTLal5
— Chembiyan (@ChembiyanM) December 20, 2024
“The pictures are terrible,” Reif said. “My information is that a car drove into the Christmas market visitors, but I can’t yet say from what direction and how far.” Footage from the scene of a cordoned-off part of the market showed debris on the ground.
“This is a terrible event, particularly now in the days before Christmas,” Saxony-Anhalt governor Reiner Haseloff said. Haseloff told dpa that he was on his way to Magdeburg but could not immediately give any information on victims or what was behind the incident.
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 (25 miles) south of Magdeburg, she said.
Magdeburg, which is west of Berlin, is the state capital of Saxony-Anhalt and has about 240,000 inhabitants.
The suspected attack came a day after the eighth anniversary of an attack on a Christmas market in Berlin. On December 19, 2016, an Islamic extremist attacker plowed through a crowd of Christmas market-goers with a truck, leaving 13 people dead and injuring dozens more. The attacker was killed days later in a shootout in Italy.
German Interior Minister Nancy 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.
(Edited by : Priyanka Deshpande)
