By Kirsti Knolle, Michele Sani and Martin Schlicht
BERLIN, July 25 (Reuters) – One person has been killed and 17 injured, with some in life-threatening condition, after a vehicle mowed down a crowd near Berlin’s Pride celebrations on Saturday evening, setting off a manhunt for the driver, the police and fire brigade said.
Hours after the apparent attack many details remained unclear, but police said the vehicle struck multiple people after charging into the city’s central Tiergarten park close to the Brandenburg Gate.
“According to our latest information, the vehicle drove … into the Tiergarten around 10 p.m. (2000 GMT), injuring several people in the process, and then came to a standstill after hitting a tree here in the Tiergarten,” a police spokesperson at the scene said.
“It was empty, which is why we are currently working intensively to track down the perpetrator or perpetrators.”
EIGHT SERIOUSLY INJURED
Among the 17 injured, eight had serious injuries and of those, three were in life-threatening condition, a fire brigade spokesperson said.
The police said the vehicle was white, describing it as possibly a car or minivan or minibus. Tabloid newspaper Bild cited a witness as saying it was a van and that a man emerged from it and fled on foot.
Hundreds of thousands of people had gathered peacefully in the German capital for the annual Christopher Street Day celebrations, one of Europe’s largest LGBTQ events, before the apparent attack brought it to an abrupt end.
A large number of emergency service vehicles were at the scene.
“It’s one of the worst days for the queer community and a day I personally hoped I’d never have to experience … I’m shocked,” said Julian Methig, who attended the event.
Christopher Street Day draws hundreds of thousands of people to the German capital each year. The event commemorates the 1969 Stonewall uprising in New York and combines a parade with political demands for equality, inclusion and protection against discrimination.
SERIES OF CAR ATTACKS
First held in West Berlin in 1979, the CSD has grown from a small demonstration into a major fixture of the city’s cultural and political calendar. The parade is the centrepiece of the CSD, but it is accompanied by a wide range of political, cultural and party events held across the city.
Germany has in recent years suffered a series of apparent attacks in which a car has charged into a crowd, causing deaths.
In May, a man believed to have mental health issues drove his car into a central pedestrian zone of the eastern German city of Leipzig, killing two people and seriously injuring three.
Last year, two people were killed in the western city of Mannheim when a 40-year-old man whom authorities described as psychologically unwell drove a car into a group of pedestrians. Weeks before that, an Afghan national carried out a similar attack on a trade union demonstration in Munich, killing two and injuring more than 40, including many children.
In December 2024, several people were killed in a car-ramming attack on a Christmas market in the eastern city of Magdeburg. The suspected perpetrator was a psychiatrist from Saudi Arabia with a history of anti-Islamic rhetoric who had lived in Germany for almost two decades.
(Reporting by Kirsti Knolle, Michele Sani and Martin Schlicht in Berlin and Sabine Wollrab in FrankfurtWriting by Francois MurphyEditing by Rod Nickel, David Gregorio and Matthew Lewis)
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