Suspected car ‘attack’ on German Christmas market injures up to 80; 1 arrested

A car barreled through a Christmas market crowd in the eastern German city of Magdeburg on Friday, leaving 60 to 80 people injured, in what regional authorities are treating as a suspected attack.

German media reports that there has been at least one dead, but this is not immediately confirmed.

Police say one suspect has been arrested thus far.

NTV television shows multiple ambulances and fire engines at the chaotic site with injured people being rushed off to hospitals and others being treated as they lay on the ground.

Cries and screams can be heard as police, medics and the fire service deploy to the litter-strewn market decorated with Christmas trees and festive lights.

“We presume it was an attack,” a spokeswoman for the interior ministry of Saxony-Anhalt state tells AFP.

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News weekly Der Spiegel, citing security sources, says that a black BMW had barreled through the crowd at high speed just after 7:00 p.m. local time (1800 GMT) when the market was filled with revelers.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz writes 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.”

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.

A 13th victim died later having suffered serious injuries in the assault, claimed by the Islamic State (IS) group.