Tragedy at the Christmas market: Vehicle rest in Magdeburg crowd

A terrible incident overshadows the festive atmosphere in Magdeburg: a man drove into the crowd of the Christmas market on Friday evening. Like Today. The police spoke of up to 40 seriously injured people, some of them in mortal danger. Eyewitnesses tell of a car that raced over 400 meters through the Christmas market and broke several barriers. The city of Magdeburg is in shock and the grief for the victims is overwhelming.

The driver, a 50-year-old doctor from Saudi Arabia, was arrested at the crime scene. According to initial information, he has been in Germany since 2006 and has an indefinite residence permit. Prime Minister Reiner Haseloff said that it was "presumably an attack," he also said that the arrested perpetrator was not known as an Islamist, as mz.de reported. On the social media, the drummer of the band Tokio Hotel, Gustav Schäfer, expressed his relief that his family escaped the horror, at the same time he showed his sympathy with the injured and the relatives of the dead. "We feel stunned," said Schäfer in an emotional statement and appealed to the population, any material that could contribute to the investigation of the incident.

As a result of the attack, there was a variety of cancellations in the cultural sector, and the security precautions were also increased massively. Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Interior Minister Nancy Faeser will visit the city to set a sign of solidarity. The incident has already caused great unrest in the entire region and also influences other Christmas markets in Saxony-Anhalt who have to adapt their security measures.