Shorouk Express
At least one person was killed and several injured after a car rammed into a crowd on a busy shopping street in the German city of Mannheim, police said.
One person has been arrested following the incident on a pedestrianised street, where a market had been erected to mark the carnival season. Several people were seen lying on the ground and two casualties were helped by emergency workers, an eye witness told Reuters.
Heavily armed officers swarmed Mannheim’s central square Paradeplatz and have cordoned off the surrounding area. Authorities have also seized the car used in the incident, BILD reported.
Follow the latest updates about the incident on The Independent’s live blog.
open image in gallery
Police spokesperson Stefan Wilhelm said “several” people were injured but police can’t yet specify the number and severity of the injuries. “We can confirm that one perpetrator was arrested,” he said, but added that police “can’t yet give information on whether there were further perpetrators”.
Mannheim University Hospital has implemented its disaster and emergency plan to prepare to care for the injured, German news agency dpa reported. A total of eight trauma teams have been made available for both adults and children.
Eye witnesses have reported seeing a driver knocking over several pedestrians on Planken, a pedestrianised central shopping street in Mannheim linking Paradeplatz and the Wasserturm monument around 1 kilometre away.
Social media footage appears to show German police attempting to apprehend someone near a body of water, with other footage showing ambulances speeding towards the scene and scores of emergency personnel swarming the centre of the city.
But police have asked social media users to refrain from sharing videos of the crime scene or the ongoing operation, and say a portal for these videos will be set up soon.
The incident occurred as crowds gathered in cities across Germany for parades to mark the carnival season. A carnival market has reportedly been underway in Mannheim’s city centre since Thursday, consisting of 60 food stalls and rides.
One stall holder at the market said, according to MM: “It is terrible here, nobody knows what happened, you only see injured people and the dead, and you don’t know what to do.”
The interior ministry at Baden-Württemberg is warning of a “life threatening situation” via a warning app, as the population is advised by police to avoid the city centre.
open image in gallery
BILD newspaper has reported that it was a black SUV which was seen driving into the crowd.
German interior minister Nancy Faeser canceled her participation in the carnival street parade in Cologne due to the events in Mannheim. “The focus is now on saving lives, treating the injured and the initial investigations by the authorities in Mannheim,” an interior ministry spokesperson told dpa.
A spokesperson for Mannheim police earlier said: “There is currently a police operation in Mannheim city center, in the area around Wasserturm/Plankenkopf. Police and rescue services are on their way.”
open image in gallery
It comes just weeks after a car drove into a crowd of people in Munich, killing a 37-year-old woman and her two-year-old daughter, and leading to the arrest of Farhad Noori, the Afghan asylum seeker suspected to be behind the attack.
Security has been a major concern for the German population and was a hot topic in the recent German elections which saw success for the country’s right-wing and far-right parties.
In May 2024, five people were injured and a police officer was killed in a stabbing at a rally hosted by an anti-Islam group, just 200 metres away from the site of Monday’s incident.
More follows on this breaking news story…
