German police arrested a Saudi man after a deadly car-ramming attack on a Christmas market on Friday in which a vehicle barrelled through a crowd of revellers at high speed, leaving a trail of bloody carnage.
At least two people were killed and more than 60 injured, said rescue services in the eastern city of Magdeburg located about 130 kilometres southwest of Berlin.
Saudi Arabia expressed ‘solidarity’ with Germany on Friday after one of its nationals was arrested following the deadly car-ramming attack.
The government expressed ‘solidarity with the German people and the families of the victims,’ the German foreign ministry said in a statement on social media platform X, and ‘affirmed its rejection of violence’.
The unnamed suspect was a 50-year-old medical doctor from Saudi Arabia living in the eastern state of Saxony-Anhalt in Germany, said regional premier Reiner Haseloff, speaking at the scene which was cordoned off and guarded by police commandos.
‘We have arrested the perpetrator, a man from Saudi Arabia, a doctor who has been in Germany since 2006,’ he told reporters, calling the attack a ‘catastrophe’ for the city and the country.
‘From what we currently know he was a lone attacker so we don't think there is any further danger.’
Police said that the vehicle drove ‘at least 400 metres across the Christmas market’ leaving behind a trail of bloodied casualties at the city’s central town hall square.
Ambulances and fire engines rushed to the chaotic site, which was doused in blue emergency lights with sirens wailing, with badly injured people being treated as they lay on the ground or rushed off to hospitals.
Cries and screams could be heard as around 100 police, medics and the fire service officers deployed to the litter-strewn market decorated with Christmas trees and festive lights.
‘The pictures are terrible,’ said city spokesman Michael Reif.
New weekly Der Spiegel, citing security sources, said that a black BMW had barrelled through the crowd at high speed just after 7:00 pm local time (1800 GMT) when the market was filled with revellers.
Haseloff said that the Saudi national had driven a rented car with Munich licence plates into the Christmas market.
Die Welt daily reported that a piece of luggage was found on the passenger seat and it was ‘unclear whether there may be an explosive device in it’, adding that ‘the authorities have not yet ruled out this scenario’.
The Magdeburg city administration said in a Facebook post that 15 people were critically injured, with 37 people suffering serious injuries and 16 sustaining light injuries.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz had quickly written on X that ‘the reports from Magdeburg raise the worst fears’.
‘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.’
Scholz was expected to travel to the city on Saturday, said the state premier.
The bloody carnage recalled a 2016 jihadist attack in which a Tunisian man driving a lorry killed 12 people in a Christmas market in Berlin, the country’s worst ever such attack.
A 13th victim died later having suffered serious injuries in the assault, claimed by the Islamic State group.
German interior minister Nancy Faeser has recently called on people to be vigilant at Christmas markets, although she said that authorities had not received any specific threats.
Domestic security service the Office for the Protection of the Constitution had warned it considers Christmas markets to be an ‘ideologically suitable target for Islamist-motivated people’.
Germany has in recent times seen a series of suspected Islamist-motivated knife attacks.
Three people were killed and eight wounded in a stabbing spree at a street festival in the western city of Solingen in August.
Police arrested a Syrian suspect over the attack that was claimed by IS.
In June, a policeman was killed in a knife attack in Mannheim, with an Afghan national held as the main suspect.
German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier wrote that "the anticipation of a peaceful Christmas was suddenly interrupted" but he cautioned that ‘the background to the terrible deed has yet been clarified’.
The leader of the far-right Alternative for Germany, Alice Weidel, which has focused on jihadist attacks in its campaign against immigrants, wrote on X ‘when will this madness stop?’
French President Emmanuel Macron said that he was ‘profoundly shocked’ by the attack and that he ‘shares the pain of the German people’.
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni also said that she was ‘deeply shocked by the brutal attack on the defenceless crowd’, adding, ‘Violence must have no place in our democracies.’
Spain prime minister Pedro Sanchez said that he was ‘shocked’ by the ‘terrible attack’.
