In Bavaria, a tragic incident took place where a 2-year-old boy and another individual lost their lives, while three more individuals sustained injuries during a violent stabbing attack. The perpetrator, identified as a former asylum-seeker who was in the process of leaving Germany, has been apprehended by the authorities.
Chancellor Olaf Scholz emphasized the importance of investigating how the suspect remained in the country despite his impending departure. He stressed that this attack, occurring a month before a crucial national election where controlling irregular migration is a significant topic, must lead to consequences.
The horrific event unfolded in a park in Aschaffenburg, a municipality with a population of approximately 72,000 residents. According to Bavaria’s security head, Joachim Herrmann, the assailant wielded a kitchen knife to target the young boy, who was among a group of children from a kindergarten.
He said the 2-year-old of Moroccan origin was killed, along with a 41-year-old German man who was passing by and appeared to have intervened to protect the other children. Bavarian officials said two adults and a 2-year-old Syrian girl were injured and taken to a hospital for treatment, and none of their lives were in danger.
Other passers-by chased the suspect and he was arrested 12 minutes after the attack, Herrmann said.
Rescue vehicles are seen near a crime scene in Aschaffenburg, Germany, Wednesday, Jan 22, 2025, where two people were killed in a knife attack. (Ralf Hettler/dpa via AP)
He said the suspect, a 28-year-old Afghan national, had come to authorities’ attention at least three times because of acts of violence. On each occasion, he was sent for psychiatric treatment and later released.
The suspect is believed to have arrived in Germany in November 2022 and applied for asylum in early 2023, Herrmann said. On Dec. 4, he told authorities that he would leave the country voluntarily and would seek papers from the Afghan consulate. A week later, German authorities formally closed asylum proceedings and told him to leave.
Police will work over the coming days to identify his motive, Herrmann said, adding that suspicions so far point to his psychiatric illness. A first search of his room at a refugee home found no evidence that he had radical Islamic views, and only turned up medicine that would fit with his psychiatric treatment, he said.
The attack is politically sensitive a month before Germany’s national election.
Scholz issued a strongly-worded statement condemning what he called “an incomprehensible act of terror.”
“I am tired of such acts of violence happening here every few weeks — by perpetrators who came to us to find protection here,” he said. “Mistaken tolerance is inappropriate here. Authorities must clear up at high pressure why the attacker was still in Germany at all.”
That must lead to “immediate consequences — it is not enough to talk,” Scholz added. He didn’t elaborate.
Following a knife attack by an Afghan immigrant in Mannheim in May that left a police officer dead and four more people injured, Scholz vowed that Germany would start deporting criminals from Afghanistan and Syria again. He vowed to step up deportations of rejected asylum-seekers following a knife attack in Solingen in August in which a suspected Islamic extremist from Syria is accused of killing three people.
At the end of August, Germany deported Afghan nationals to their homeland for the first time since the Taliban returned to power in 2021.
