A vehicle has rammed into a crowd of people in the southern German city of Munich, injuring at least 28 people in what officials say may be a “suspected attack.”
The individual behind the wheel of a white Mini Cooper was identified as a 24-year-old Afghan asylum seeker. Police say the car accelerated before hitting a trade union rally—an officer fired one shot at the suspect before he was arrested. The suspect was known to police for theft and drug offenses.
There have been reports of a second passenger in the car but police say they can’t confirm this.
The authorities have not yet released further details about the incident or the driver’s motives. The investigation into this suspected attack is ongoing.
Bavaria’s PM: The crash in Munich is a “suspected attack”
Bavaria’s Prime Minister Markus Söder said the crash is a “suspected attack.” “The attack shows that I have to change something in Germany—and quickly,” he said.
The Bavarian capital will see heavy security in the coming days because the three-day Munich Security Conference, an annual gathering of international foreign and security policy officials, opens on Friday.
The crash happened hours before the US vice president and Ukrainian president were due to arrive in the city for the conference.
Bavaria’s state interior minister, Joachim Herrmann, said authorities do not believe the car ramming was connected to the conference, but they still need to determine the motive.
Incidents and attacks in Germany
Across Germany, people will have felt a familiar sense of dread and horror on hearing these initial reports, the BBC says.
In 2016, a truck was driven into a Christmas market in Berlin by a Tunisian man who was a failed asylum seeker and had been a known jihadist threat—leading to 13 deaths.
In December last year a car ploughed through crowds, again at a Christmas market, in the city of Magdeburg. Six people died and around 300 were injured. The suspect was a 50-year-old Saudi man who’d been an outspoken critic of Islam.
Magdeburg was the deadliest in a string of attacks over the last year in Germany, involving suspects who’ve been asylum seekers.
The incident follows a series of attacks involving immigrants in recent months that have pushed migration to the forefront of the campaign for Germany’s Feb. 23 election. Most recently, a two-year-old boy and another person were killed in a knife attack in Aschaffenburg, also in Bavaria.