At least 2 dead and 60 hurt after car drives into German Christmas market in suspected attack

Magdeburg (Germany): A car plowed into a busy outdoor Christmas market in the eastern German city of Magdeburg on Friday, killing at least two people and injuring at least 60 others in what authorities suspect was an attack.

The driver of the car was arrested shortly after the car barrelled into the market at around 7 pm, when it was busy with holiday shoppers looking forward to the weekend. The suspect is a 50-year-old Saudi doctor who first came to Germany in 2006, Saxony-Anhalt’s interior minister, Tamara Zieschang, said at a news conference.

“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.

Fifteen of the injured were were hurt very seriously, according to government officials and the city government’s website.

Haseloff said the two people who were confirmed to have died were an adult and a toddler, but that he could not rule out further deaths.

“But that is speculation now. Every human life that has fallen victim to this attack is a terrible tragedy and one human life too many,” he said.

Magdeburg’s University Hospital said it was taking care of 10 to 20 patients but was preparing for more, dpa reported.

The suspected attack in Magdeburg, a city of about 240,000 people that is west of Berlin and is the state capital of Saxony-Anhalt, came eight years after an Islamic extremist drove a truck into crowded Christmas market in the German capital, killing 13 people and injuring many others. The attacker was killed days later in a shootout in Italy.

Christmas markets are a huge part of German culture as an annual holiday tradition cherished since the Middle Ages and successfully exported to much of the Western world. In Berlin alone, more than 100 markets opened late last month and brought the smells of mulled wine, roasted almonds and bratwurst to the capital. Other markets abound across the country.

German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser said late last month that there were no concrete indications of a danger to Christmas markets this year, but that it was wise to be vigilant.

Hours after Friday’s suspected attack, the sound of sirens clashed with the market’s holiday decorations, including ornaments, stars and leafy garland festooning the vendors’ booths.

“It’s a terrible tragedy — this is a catastrophe for the city of Magdeburg and for the state, and for German generally as well,” Haseloff said. “It is really one of the worst things one can imagine, particularly in connection with what a Christmas market should bring.”

Chancellor OIaf Scholz posted on X: “My thoughts are with the victims and their relatives. We stand beside them and beside the people of Magdeburg.”