A car crashed into a Christmas market this Friday evening in the German city of Magdeburg, in the north of the country. This is what a spokesperson for the local emergency services told AFP. The provisional report shows eleven people killed. Between “60 and 80 people” were reportedly injured. This toll could rise. Regional authorities suspect an “attack”.
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It was around 7 p.m. that a car drove at high speed into the crowd, large on a Friday evening, in the Christmas market in the heart of Magdeburg. The regional authorities of Saxony-Anhalt, in the north ofGermanysaid they suspected a “ attack “. “ We believe this is an attack “, a spokesperson for the regional Interior Ministry told AFP.
A suspect has been arrested, local police said. No details were provided about this man. The car that drove into the crowd “for at least 400 meters through the Christmas market » is still on site, said a spokesperson for the Magdeburg police.
German media speak of a person from Saudi Arabia who had rented the BMW he was driving, reports our correspondent in Berlin, Pascal Thibaut. The police of this city of around 250,000 inhabitants, capital of the state of Saxony-Anhalt, speak of a “ important intervention » in progress on the Christmas market, according to a message on X.
Broadcaster NTV showed numerous ambulances and fire trucks at the site, injured people being rushed to hospitals and rescuers installing aid devices for the victims. Interior Minister Nancy Faeser recently called on the population to be vigilant at Christmas markets, without mentioning specific threats.
The chancellor Olaf Scholz expressed his shock following the tragedy. “ The information coming from Magdeburg suggests the worst. My thoughts are with the victims and their loved ones. We stand with them and with the people of Magdeburg. I thank the rescue teams involved in these hours of anguish “, he wrote on the social network X.
Christmas markets are a “ ideologically appropriate target for people motivated by Islamism », Recently warned the intelligence services. Germany experienced a bloody ram truck attack on a Christmas market in December 2016, claimed by the Islamic State (IS) group, which left 12 dead in the center of Berlin.