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 called a deliberate attack.
The driver was arrested at the scene shortly after the car barreled into the market at around 7 p.m., when it was teeming with holiday shoppers looking forward to the weekend.
Verified bystander footage distributed by the German news agency dpa showed the suspect’s arrest on a walkway in the middle of the road. A nearby police officer pointing a handgun at the man shouted at him as he lay prone. Other officers soon arrived to take 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.
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The violence shocked the city, bringing its mayor to the verge of tears and marring a festive event that's part of a centuries-old German tradition. It also prompted several other German towns to cancel their weekend Christmas markets as a precaution and out of solidarity with Magdeburg's loss.
The suspect is a 50-year-old Saudi doctor who moved to Germany in 2006, Tamara Zieschang, the interior minister for the state of Saxony-Anhalt, said at a news conference. He has been practicing medicine in Bernburg, about 25 miles south of Magdeburg, she said.
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The man was driving a rental vehicle, Reiner Haseloff, Saxony-Anhalt's governor, told reporters.
“As things stand, he is a lone perpetrator, so that as far as we know there is no further danger to the city," Haseloff said. "Every human life that has fallen victim to this attack is a terrible tragedy and one human life too many."
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. 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 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.
German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier said the attack interrupted the anticipation of a peaceful Christmas.
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.”
NATO’s secretary-general, the European Commission’s president and U.S. Vice President-elect JD Vance also expressed their condolences on X.
“Our prayers go to the people affected by this terrible attack on a Christmas market in Germany. What a ghastly attack so close to Christmas,” Vance wrote.
Magdeburg Mayor Simone Borris, who was on the verge of tears, said officials plan to arrange a memorial at the city’s cathedral on Saturday.
After a soccer match Friday evening between Bayern Munich and Leipzig, Bayern CEO Jan-Christian Dreesen asked fans at the club’s stadium to observe a minute of silence.
The White House is closely monitoring the incident in Magdeburg and has offered support to German officials, extending condolences to the victims, their families and the German people, a White House official said.
Police in New York City have increased security at holiday markets as a precaution and in response to the incident in Germany, a senior NYPD official told NBC News on Friday.
