Four adults and a nine-year-old child have been killed in a horrifying attack on a Christmas market in Germany.
Officials have confirmed that a tragic incident occurred at a Christmas market in Magdeburg on December 20, where a car plowed into a crowd of shoppers around 7pm, resulting in the death of at least five people.
At least 205 people have also been injured during the massacre, while the suspect, a 50-year-old Saudi doctor, has since been arrested.
Prosecutor Horst Nopens said he is under investigation on suspicion of murder, attempted murder and bodily harm. He is currently being questioned.
Several German media outlets identified the suspect as Taleb A., withholding his last name in line with privacy laws, and reported that he was a specialist in psychiatry and psychotherapy.
He has lived in Germany since 2006 after arriving in the country as a refugee from Saudi Arabia, and has been practicing medicine in Bernburg, about 25 miles south of Magdeburg, officials said.
The country has been in mourning following Friday’s attack, with locals placing candles and tributes at the site where the car drove into a crowd.
The motive of the attack remains unclear at this stage, although officials said the suspect’s ‘dissatisfaction with the treatment of refugees from Saudi Arabia in Germany’ may have been a factor.
Firefighters patrol the scene of the crash on Friday after a car rammed into a massive crowd of shoppers at a Christmas market in Magdeburg at around 7pm
Director of the Magdeburg Police Inspectorate Tom-Oliver Langhans pictured during a press conference on Saturday where officials revealed four adults and a nine-year-old child were killed in the horrifying attack
Several German media outlets identified the suspect as Taleb A (pictured), and reported that he was a specialist in psychiatry and psychotherapy
Officials told a press conference on Saturday that 205 people were injured in the attack, 41 of which have been hurt badly.
Neurosurgeon Mahmoud Elenbaby said some 80 patients were brought to Magdeburg’s university hospital on Friday night.
The suspect is currently being interviewed by police and it is believed he was working alone, he added.
Describing himself as a former Muslim, the suspect shared dozens of tweets and retweets daily focusing on anti-Islam themes, criticizing the religion and congratulating Muslims who left the faith.
He also accused German authorities of failing to do enough to combat what he said was the ‘Islamism of Europe.’
Mourners lit candles and placed flowers outside a church near the market on the cold and gloomy day. Several people stopped and cried.
A Berlin church choir whose members witnessed a previous Christmas market attack in 2016 sang Amazing Grace, a hymn about God’s mercy, offering their prayers and solidarity with the victims.
Chancellor Scholz and Interior Minister Nancy Faeser traveled to Magdeburg on Saturday, and a memorial service is to take place in the city cathedral in the evening.
Plush toys, candles and floral tributes lie near the site where a car drove into a crowd at a Magdeburg Christmas market
Mourners lit candles and placed flowers outside a church near the market on the cold and gloomy day
Debris and empty stalls are seen on a closed Christmas market one day after a car-ramming attack in Magdeburg
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz visits the site where a car drove into a crowd of a Christmas market in Magdeburg
Police officers secure the area during the German Chancellor’s visit to the scene of a vehicle-ramming attack on the Christmas market in Magdeburg
The violence shocked Germany and the city, bringing its mayor to the verge of tears and marring a festive event that’s part of a centuries-old German tradition.
It prompted several other German towns to cancel their weekend Christmas markets as a precaution and out of solidarity with Magdeburg’s loss.
German officials said emergency services received their first call about the attack at 7:02pm local time and brought the situation under control by 7:05pm.
Verified bystander footage distributed by the German news agency dpa showed the suspect’s arrest at a tram stop in the middle of the road.
A nearby police officer pointing a handgun at the man shouted at him as he lay prone, his head arched up slightly.
Other officers swarmed around the suspect and took him into custody.
Thi Linh Chi Nguyen, a 34-year-old manicurist from Vietnam whose salon is located in a mall across from the Christmas market, was on the phone during a break when she heard loud bangs and thought at first they were fireworks.
She then saw a car drive through the market at high speed. People screamed and a child was thrown into the air by the car.
The country has been in mourning following Friday’s attack, with locals placing candles and tributes at the site where a car drove into a crowd
People stand next to candles and tributes near the site where a car drove into a crowd at a Magdeburg Christmas market
People gather at the official mourning site in front of St. John’s Church to pay their respects following a vehicle-ramming attack on the Christmas market, in Magdeburg
Debris and closed stalls are seen on the site of a car-ramming attack on a Christmas market in Magdeburg
Shaking as she described the horror of what she witnessed, she recalled seeing the car bursting out of the market and turning right onto Ernst-Reuter-Allee street and then coming to a standstill at the tram stop where the suspect was arrested.
‘My husband and I helped them for two hours. He ran back home and grabbed as many blankets as he could find because they didn’t have enough to cover the injured people. And it was so cold,’ she said.
The market itself was still cordoned off Saturday with red-and-white tape and police vans every 50 meters (yards). Police with machine pistols guarded every entry to the market. Some thermal security blankets still lay on the street.
