TWO people are dead – including a small child – and up to 80 people possibly injured after a car ploughed into a crowd at a German Christmas market.
The motor drove into terrified revellers celebrating in Magdeburg as horror scenes saw people struck directly and thrown to the ground.
A man was arrested at the scene soon after the tragedy.
The suspect, a 50-year-old Saudi doctor, was not known to German authorities as an Islamic extremist, Germany’s DPA news agency reported.
Some 60 to 80 people may have been injured after he drove 400m across the Christmas market, according to Bild.
Officials suspect it was a deliberate act.
Two people, including a small child, have now been confirmed dead by Saxony-Anhalt’s Prime Minister Reiner Erich Haseloff.
Some of the injured are said to be in a critical condition with a huge number of emergency workers now at the scene.
The car – a black BMW SUV – crashed through the barriers protecting the market and drove into shoppers just after 7pm.
Paramedics quickly arrived at the scene and set up tents to take care of the injured.
Cop cars have bathed the scene in blue lights as they investigate what happened.
In a initial report, Magdeburg cops said: “Extensive police operations are currently taking place at the Magdeburg Christmas market.
“The Christmas market in the city center is closed. Further reports will be made.”
Cops are not yet sure whether it was carried out by a lone perpetrator.
The Christmas market posted to Instagram to ask people to stay away.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said reports “suggest something terrible is to come”.
He said in a post on X: “My thoughts are with the victims and their families. We stand by their side and by the side of the people of Magdeburg.
“My thanks go to the dedicated rescue workers in these anxious hours.”
Matthias Schuppe, a government spokesman in the province of Saxony-Anholt, said it was an “attack” in comments to local media.
A spokesperson for local police said: “We do not yet know exactly what happened.”
Prime Minister Reiner Haseloff of Saxony-Anhalt is on his way to Magdeburg.
He said: “This is a terrible event, especially now in the days before Christmas.”
Another Christmas market in Erfurt, Germany, has now been evacuated as a precautionary measure.
Local hospitals in Magdeburg are now preparing for a “mass casualty event”, according to Reuters.
Eight years in the past, a truck steered by a Tunisian refugee applicant with connections to Islamism, rammed into a busy Christmas market in Berlin. This tragic incident led to the loss of 12 lives and left many others wounded.
