The death toll in the attack♌ on a busy Christmas market in the German city of Magdeburg has risen to five, the state governor said Saturday.
Saxony-Anhalt Gov. Reiner Haseloff also said that more than 200 people were injured. Many of them have serious ܫinjuries. The incident happened when a Saudi doctor intentiona🌼lly drove a black BMW into the market on Friday evening, as quoted by AP.
AP has quoted the German Chancellor Olaf Scholz as saꦯying, "Nearly 40 people are so seriously injured that we must be very worried about them."
Who Was The Driver?
Several bystanders captured videos of the driver being a🐽rrested in the middle of a walkway as the police officers pointed a gun and shouted at him as he la꧙id on the ground.
The other ꦕpoli𝄹ce officers took him into custody later.
The suspect was identified as a 50-year-o🦄ld Saudi doctor who moved to Germany in 2006༺ named Tamara Zieschang.
The interior minister for the state of Saxony-Anhalt said at a news𒈔 conference that the driver has been practising medicine in Bernburg, about 40 kilometres (25 miles) south of Magdeburg.
"As things stand, he is a lone perpetrator, so that as far as we kn🎶ow, there is no further danger to the city๊," 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," he added.
The violence occurred in Magdeburg, 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 a crowded Christmas market in Berlin,💮 killing 13 people and injuring many others. Thꦫe attacker was killed days later in a shootout in Italy.
Christmas markets are a 🎃huge part of German culture as an annual ho🅺liday 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 mo⭕nth and brought the smells of mulled wine, roasted almonds and bratwurst to the capital. Other markets abound across the country.
Reactions Poured In
The violence shocked the city, bringing its mayor to the verge of tears and marring a festive event that is part of❀ a centuries-old German ⛦tradition.
German Interior Ministe𓄧r 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.
Magdeburg resident Dorin Steffen told German news agency 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 terr🔥ible 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 t🐟he hope that nothing has happened to our relatives, friends and acquaintances."
The attack reverberated far beyond Magdeburg, with Haseloff calling it a cat𒊎astrophe for the city, state and country. He s🏅aid 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 w🔯ith what a Christmas market should bring," the governor said.
Chancellor OIaf Scholz posted on X: "My thoughts are with the vi♔ctims and𝓰 their relatives. We stand beside them and beside the people of Magdeburg."
NATO's secretary-general and the European Commission's president also 🔴exp🐽ressed their condolences on X.
Magdeburg Mayor Simone Borris, who was on the verge of tears🎃, said officials plan to arrange a memorial at the city'ওs cathedral on Saturday.
After a soccer match on Friday evening between Bayern Munich and Leipzig, Bayern CEO Jan-Christia🌠n Dreesen asked fans at the club's stadium to observe a minute of silence.
