Update: Nine-year-old among five killed in attack on German Christmas market

A nine-year-old child and four adults have been killed, and more than 200 injured after a car drove into a crowd at a Christmas market in the eastern German city of Magdeburg on Friday, officials say.

At least 41 people were critically injured after the incident which lasted around three minutes, police said.

The arrested suspect has been named in local media as Taleb al-Abdulmohsen, a 50-year-old Saudi citizen who arrived in Germany in 2006 and had worked as a doctor.

Reiner Haseloff, the premier of Saxony-Anhalt state, said a preliminary investigation suggested the alleged attacker was acting alone.

He added that he could not rule out more deaths due to the number of injured.

The suspect is currently being questioned and prosecutors expect to charge him with murder and attempted murder in due course, the head of the local prosecutor’s office said on Saturday.

Prosecutor Horst Walter Nopens added that the investigation was ongoing but suggested the background to the crime “could have been disgruntlement with the way Saudi Arabian refugees are treated in Germany”.

The suspected attacker has no known links to Islamist extremism – social media and posts online appear to suggest he had been critical of Islam.

Footage from the scene showed numerous emergency services vehicles attending while people lay on the ground.

Further footage then emerged of armed police confronting and arresting a man who can be seen lying on the ground by a stationary vehicle.

Unverified video on social media purports to show a car ploughing into the crowd at the market.

City officials said around 100 police, medics and firefighters, as well as 50 rescue service personnel rushed to the scene.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who travelled to the city on Saturday, described the attack as a “dreadful tragedy” as “so many people were injured and killed with such brutality” in a place that is supposed to be “joyful”.

He told reporters that there were serious concerns for those who had been critically injured – which German media reports is in the dozens – and that “all resources” will be allocated to investigating the suspect behind the attack.

There would be a memorial service for the victims at the Magdeburg Cathedral later on Saturday, he added.

In an interview with German paper Bild, Nadine, described being at the Christmas market with her boyfriend, Marco, when the car came speeding towards them.

“He was hit and pulled away from my side,” the 32-year-old told the paper. “It was terrible.”

Meanwhile, Lars Frohmüller, a reporter for German public broadcaster MDR, told BBC Radio 4’s World Tonight he saw “blood on the floor” as well as “many doctors trying to keep people warm and help them with their injuries”.

German media identified the suspect as Taleb al-Abdulmohsen, a psychiatrist who lives in Bernburg, around 40km (25 miles) south of Magdeburg.

Originally from Saudi Arabia, he arrived in Germany in 2006 and in 2016 was recognised as a refugee.

He ran a website that aimed to help other former Muslims flee persecution in their Gulf homelands.

Evidenced by social media posts, the suspect is an outspoken critic of Islam, and has promoted conspiracy theories regarding a plot to seek Islamic supremacy in Europe.

When the incident occurred, Magdeburg’s football team were playing against Fortuna Dusseldorf.

After the game finished, the team’s players united in a line in front of their supporters. A statement from the club said its “thoughts are with those affected by the terrible events and the Magdeburg Christmas market”.

Meanwhile, a minute’s silence was held at the end of a match between Bayern and RB Leipzig in Munich.

Friday’s incident is not the first time people at a Christmas market have been attacked in Germany.

In 2016, Anis Amri, a Tunisian man who failed to gain asylum in Germany and had links to the so-called Islamic State (IS) group, drove a truck into crowds gathered at a church market in Berlin, killing 12 and injuring 49 others.

Two years later, a gunman opened fire on a Christmas market in the eastern French city of Strasbourg, killing five and injuring another 11 people. The gunman was shot dead by police two days later.

Only last month, German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser talked about the need for “greater vigilance” at the highly popular markets – but said there were no “concrete” indications of danger.

She also reportedly pointed to tougher laws on weapons in public spaces following a knife attack in Solingen, west Germany, in August in which three people died – an incident which reignited an already fraught debate on asylum and migration in Germany. (BBC News)

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