UPDATE: Casualties at German Christmas market after car rams crowd
Police and ambulances stand next to a Christmas market where a car crashed into a crowd injuring between 60 and 80 people, according to a spokesman for the local rescue service, on Dec. 20, 2024, in Magdeburg, eastern Germany. / Credit: NEWS5/NEWS5/AFP via Getty Images CNA Staff, Dec 20, 2024 / 15:55 pm (CNA).
A car driven by a Saudi Arabian immigrant rammed into a crowd at a Christmas market Friday evening in the central German city of Magdeburg, killing at least two people, according to media reports.
Police in Magdeburg, a city of 240,000 about two hours west of Berlin by car, have not yet released official details about whether the incident was a terrorist attack. The regional governor, Reiner Haseloff, told the media that the suspect is a 50-year-old Saudi Arabian citizen who has worked in Germany as a doctor since 2006.
German news sources reported that the driver of the car was taken into custody. AFP News Agency, citing emergency services, said that between 60 to 80 people were injured.
Magdeburg Police said on social media simply that “extensive police operations are currently taking place” at the market and “further reports will be made.”
Erstmeldung:
Gegenwärtig finden auf dem Magdeburger Weihnachtsmarkt umfangreiche Einsatzmaßnahmen der Polizei statt. Der Weihnachtsmarkt in der Innenstadt ist geschlossen. Es wird nachberichtet.— Polizei Magdeburg (@Polizei_MD) December 20, 2024
Magdeburg is known as the city where St. Norbert — whose legacy lives on through the worldwide Norbertine (or Premonstratensian) order — served as archbishop until his death in 1134.
A German official had in November called for “vigilance” at Christmas markets this year amid a heightened security situation more broadly, though no concrete threats were identified at that time. Germany’s BfV domestic security agency said Christmas markets could be targeted due to their “symbolism” related to “Christian values” and as an “embodiment of Western culture and way of life.”
The incident in Magdeburg took place almost exactly eight years after more than a dozen people were killed when a truck driven by an Islamic extremist rammed into crowds at a Berlin Christmas market. That attacker fled and was later killed in a shootout with police in Italy.
In November 2023, two teenagers, aged 15 and 16, were arrested in Germany on suspicion of terrorism. They reportedly sympathized with the Islamic State and were believed to have planned a Christmas market attack using a vehicle, CNA Deutsch, CNA’s German-language news partner, reported earlier this year.
And in April, German authorities reported the arrest of four suspects allegedly planning terror attacks to target Christians attending church services and police stations with knives and Molotov cocktails.
This story was updated Dec. 20, 2024, at 5:35 p.m. ET with information about the driver of the car.
