Suspected car attack on German Christmas market kills one, injures 68

BERIN: At least one person was killed and 68 injured Friday in a suspected attack on a Christmas market in the eastern Germany city of Magdeburg, local authorities said.

“At the current time emergency services confirm the following numbers: one dead, 15 seriously injured, 37 moderately injured, 16 lightly injured,” said city authorities in a Facebook post, adding that “a car drove into a crowd of people at the Christmas market at high speed”.

Police made one arrest after the vehicle drove “at least 400 metres across the Christmas market”, leaving behind a trail of bloodied casualties at the city’s central town hall square.

NTV television showed ambulances and fire engines at the chaotic site, which was doused in blue light with sirens wailing, as badly injured people were being rushed off to hospitals and others were treated as they lay on the ground.

Cries and screams could be heard as dozens of police, medics and the fire service deployed to the litter-strewn market decorated with Christmas trees and festive lights. “We presume it was an attack,” a spokeswoman for the interior ministry of Saxony-Anhalt state told AFP.

News weekly Der Spiegel, citing security sources, said that a black BMW had barrelled through the crowd at high speed just after 7:00 pm local time (1800 GMT) when the market was filled with revellers. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz wrote on X that “the reports from Magdeburg raise the worst fears”. German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser has recently called on people to be vigilant at Christmas markets, although she said that authorities had not received any specific threats.