On Friday evening, a tragic incident unfolded in Magdeburg, Germany, as a Saudi doctor intentionally drove a black BMW into a bustling Christmas market filled with holiday shoppers. The deliberate attack resulted in the deaths of at least two individuals, including a young child, and left over 60 others injured, further unsettling the country and challenging the sense of security its citizens once felt.
The perpetrator, a 50-year-old Saudi national who has resided in Germany for close to twenty years and worked as a doctor there, was apprehended at the scene of the crime as emergency medical personnel tended to the victims. He was subsequently taken into custody for interrogation as authorities sought to understand the motives behind the attack and ensure accountability for the heinous act.
But on Saturday there were still no answers as to what caused the man to drive into a crowd in the eastern Germany city of Magdeburg.
This appalling act of violence plunged the city of Magdeburg into grief and disbelief, with even the mayor visibly emotional over the tragedy that struck during a time meant for joy and celebration as part of Germany’s longstanding Christmas market tradition. The impact reverberated beyond the city limits, prompting other towns across the country to cancel their own festive markets in solidarity with Magdeburg and as a precautionary measure to safeguard their communities.
Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Interior Minister Nancy Faeser were due to travel to Magdeburg on Saturday, and a memorial service is to take place in the city cathedral in the evening.
“My thoughts are with the victims and their relatives,” Scholz wrote on X. “We stand beside them and beside the people of Magdeburg.”
Magdeburg is a city of about 240,000 people, west of Berlin, that serves as Saxony-Anhalt’s capital. Friday’s attack came eight years after an Islamic extremist drove a truck into crowded Christmas market in Berlin, killing 13 people and injuring many others. The attacker was killed days later in a shootout in Italy.
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 soon arrived and took the man into custody.
The two people confirmed dead were an adult and a toddler, but officials said additional deaths couldn’t be ruled out because 15 people had been seriously injured.
“As things stand, he is a lone perpetrator, so that as far as we know there is no further danger to the city,” Saxony-Anhalt’s governor, Reiner Haseloff, told reporters. “Every human life that has fallen victim to this attack is a terrible tragedy and one human life too many.”
Authorities identified the suspect as a 50-year-old Saudi doctor who moved to Germany in 2006 and who had been practicing medicine in Bernburg, about 40 kilometers (25 miles) south of Magdeburg.
Saudi Arabia’s foreign ministry condemned the attack on X but did not mention the suspect’s connection to the kingdom.
Christmas markets are a German holiday tradition cherished since the Middle Ages, now successfully exported to much of the Western world.
Hours after Friday’s tragedy, the wail of sirens clashed with the market’s festive ornaments, stars and leafy garlands.
Magdeburg resident Dorin Steffen told dpa that she was at a concert in a nearby church when she heard the sirens. The cacophony was so loud “you had to assume that something terrible had happened.”
She called the attack “a dark day” for the city.
“We are shaking,” Steffen said. “Full of sympathy for the relatives, also in the hope that nothing has happened to our relatives, friends and acquaintances.”
The attack reverberated far beyond Magdeburg, with Haseloff calling it a catastrophe for the city, state and country. He said flags would be lowered to half-staff in Saxony-Anhalt and that the federal government planned to do the same.
“It is really one of the worst things one can imagine, particularly in connection with what a Christmas market should bring,” the governor said.
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Moulson reported from Berlin.
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