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At least one person has been killed after a car sped 400m straight through a crowded Christmas market in eastern Germany.
As many as 80 visitors have reportedly been injured in the busy Magdeburg market on Friday at 7.04pm local time, according to Bild. Deputy mayor Regina-Dolores Stieler-Hinz said one person had died.
The driver was arrested at the scene. He was not known to German authorities as an Islamic extremist, the dpa agency reported, citing unidentified security officials.
He is believed to be a doctor in his 50s and to have come from Saudi Arabia.
An eyewitness told the Mitteldeutsche Zeitung that the car “drove into the ‘Fairy Tale’ area of the Magdeburg Christmas market” full of families at the time.
She and her child were able to jump out of the car’s path as it sped through.
A stallholder said that the driver raced directly past his burger stand describing the aftermath as “war-like”.
A police spokesman told Bild it’s still unclear whether the attack was carried out by a lone perpetrator.
The car, described as a dark BMW by witnesses, drove “at least 400 metres” through the Christmas market sending people flying into the air before coming to halt.
The sounds of sirens from first responders clashed with the market’s holiday decorations, including ornaments, stars and leafy garland festooning the vendors’ booths.
Footage from the scene of a cordoned-off part of the market showed debris on the ground.
Regional government spokesperson Matthias Schuppe and city spokesperson Michael Reif said they suspected it was a deliberate act.
Reif said there were “numerous injured,” but he didn’t give a precise figure.
“The pictures are terrible,” he said. “My information is that a car drove into the Christmas market visitors, but I can’t yet say from what direction and how far.”
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz expressed his concern after local reports suggested as many as 80 people were injured.
He posted on X: “The reports from Magdeburg suggest something terrible is to come. 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.”
“This is a terrible event, particularly now in the days before Christmas,” Saxony-Anhalt governor Reiner Haseloff said.
Video on social media shows a number of people laying on the ground and emergency services in attendance.
An “extensive police operation” is underway and the market was closed, according to local authorities.
Magdeburg, which is west of Berlin, is the state capital of Saxony-Anhalt and has about 240,000 inhabitants.
On 19 December 2016 in Berlin, an Islamic extremist attacker drove into a crowd of Christmas market-goers with a truck, leaving 13 people dead and injuring dozens more. The attacker was killed days later in a shootout in Italy.
German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser had 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.