At least 28 people have been injured in Munich after a car drove into a crowd of demonstrators near the city’s centre, police said.
The driver, identified as a 24-year-old Afghanistan-born man currently in Germany as an asylum seeker, was arrested on-site and posed no further danger, authorities confirmed.
Bavaria’s Minister President Markus Söder said the incident was “presumably an attack”. Munich’s Mayor Dieter Reiter said that “many people have been injured, including children.”
Söder, the leader of the Christian Social Union (CSU), said in the aftermath of the attacks that the incident shows that “something has to change in Germany and quickly.
We cannot go from attack to attack and show concern, but we must actually change something,” he added.
Local media, citing authorities, said that an extremist motivation could not be ruled out.
A police spokesperson said that the car approached a demonstration organised by Verdi, one of Germany’s largest trade unions, from behind, before overtaking a police vehicle and deliberately ploughing into the crowd.
Officers fired at the vehicle before the suspect was detained.
Police said they believed the suspect acted alone. He was previously known to the police for drug and theft incidents.
The injured are currently being treated in several hospitals in the city. However, Munich’s second mayor, Dominik Krause, confirmed that employees of city administration were among those injured.
Many of the demonstration participants brought their children to the event, Krause said.
No further information about possible deaths has been released at this time.
Deep shock over ‘senseless’ act
The incident is the latest in a string of attacks in which the suspect was an asylum seeker, including one three weeks ago in the Bavarian city of Aschaffenburg in which a man and a two-year-old boy were killed.
Söder’s party, the sister party of the CDU who are predicted to win Germany’s upcoming elections, has pushed for tougher immigration and asylum policies in the wake of such attacks.
Chancellor Olaf Scholz announced a crackdown in response to the incident, saying that the perpetrator must “leave the country.” Friedrich Merz, the frontrunner in Germany’s election and leader of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), said, “Everyone must feel safe again in our country. Something had to change in Germany.”
Other German politicians reacted to the incident, with Greens chancellor candidate Robert Habeck calling the act of violence “senseless.”
“It is important that the background to the attack is now quickly clarified,” Habeck said.
Alice Weidel, the co-leader of the far-right AfD, which is currently second in the polls, called for a “turning point” in migration and asylum policy.
Verdi’s branch in Munich said it was “deeply shocked” by the incident, with chairman Frank Werneke calling it a “difficult moment for all colleagues.”
The Bavarian Municipal Employers’ Association said that the right to strike is essential to society and that it stood with the trade union in such moments.
The Bavarian city is set to host scores of world leaders, including Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and US Vice President JD Vance, for the Munich Security Conference from Friday to Sunday.
Authorities confirmed there is no known link between the incidents.
SOURCE: EURONEWS
