Driver Kills at Least 2 After Ramming Into Crowd at German Christmas Market

(Reuters) - A driver rammed a car into a large crowd of revellers at a Christmas market in central Germany on the evening of Friday 20 December 2024, killing at least two people and injuring more than 60 before he was arrested, authorities said.

One of the dead was a young child, said Reiner Haseloff, premier of the state of Saxony-Anhalt. The incident took place in Magdeburg, the state capital, 150 km west of Berlin.

"It is a catastrophe for the city of Magdeburg, for the state and for Germany in general," Haseloff said, adding that the death toll could rise given the severity of some of the injuries.

Haseloff described the attacker as a 50-year-old male doctor from Saudi Arabia with permanent residency in Germany, where he had lived for almost two decades.

"As things stand at the moment, we are talking about a lone offender, which means that there is no further danger to the city because we were able to arrest him."

The motive was unclear. The suspect was not known to German authorities as an Islamist, according to local broadcaster MDR. A Saudi source told Reuters the kingdom had warned German authorities about the attacker, who the source said had posted extremist views on his personal X account.

The source identified the suspect as Taleb Abdul Jawad. Germany's Der Spiegel identified the attacker as Taleb A., a specialist in psychiatry and psychotherapy who sympathised with Germany's far-right Alternative for Germany party. The magazine did not say where it got the information.

Saudi Arabia's foreign ministry condemned the attack.

Following the incident, police cleared an area surrounding the vehicle to investigate a possible explosive device, local broadcaster MDR reported. It later cited police as saying that no such device had been found.

A police operation was also underway in the town of Bernburg, south of Magdeburg, where the suspect is believed to have lived, local newspaper Mitteldeutsche Zeitung reported.

Police were not immediately available to comment on the reports of a suspicious item or the operation in Bernburg.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who sent his thoughts to those affected in a post on social media platform X, is expected to visit the scene on Saturday with Interior Minister Nancy Faeser.

As news of the attack broke, Elon Musk, the billionaire allied with US President-elect Donald Trump, criticised Scholz and called on him to resign.

A video posted on social media from a position above the market shows a car driving at speed through a crowd walking between two rows of market stalls. People can be seen knocked to the ground and running away. Reuters was able to verify the location, with the trees, outline and design of the buildings matching file and satellite imagery of the area.

Footage from a local broadcaster showed people wrapped in blankets on the ground receiving care in the wake of the attack.

Bild newspaper quoted a witness identified only as Nadine saying she had been walking arm-in-arm with her boyfriend, Marco, when the car came hurtling towards them.

"He was hit and ripped away from my side," Bild cited her as saying, adding that he had been injured on his leg and head and taken to hospital but she did not know where to find him. "The uncertainty is unbearable," she told Bild.

Late last month, Faeser advised people to be vigilant at Christmas markets, which have been a particular focus of security services as a potential target for extremist attacks.

Eight years ago, Anis Amri, a failed Tunisian asylum seeker with Islamist links, rammed a truck into a crowded Christmas market in Berlin, killing twelve people and injuring dozens of others.