MAGDEBURG, Germany (AP) — Germans mourned on Saturday for the victims and their shaken sense of security after a Saudi doctor intentionally drove into a Christmas market full of holiday shoppers, killing at least five people, including a young child, and injuring at least 200 more.
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Authorities arrested a 50-year-old man at the site of the attack in Magdeburg on Friday night and took him in for questioning. He has been living in Germany since 2006, practicing medicine in Bernburg, about 40 kilometers south of Magdeburg, officials said.
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The governor of the state, Reiner Haseloff, informed journalists that the number of deaths has increased to five from a previous figure of two and that more than 200 people in total were injured.
Chancellor Olaf Scholz said that nearly 40 of them "are so seriously injured that we must be very concerned about them."
"There is no place more peaceful and joyful than a Christmas market," said Scholz. "What a terrible act it is to hurt and kill so many people there with such brutality."
Several German media outlets identified the suspect as Taleb A., omitting his last name in accordance with privacy laws, and reported that he was a specialist in psychiatry and psychotherapy.
The mourners lit candles and placed flowers outside a church near the market on the cold and gloomy day. Several people stopped and cried. A church choir from Berlin, whose members had witnessed a previous attack at a Christmas market in 2016, sang Amazing Grace, a hymn about God's mercy, offering their prayers and solidarity with the victims.
Who is the person behind the attack in Magdeburg?
There were still no answers as to what motivated the man to drive his black BMW into a crowd in the eastern German city.
Describing himself as a former Muslim, the suspect shared dozens of tweets and retweets daily focused on anti-Islamic themes, criticizing the religion and congratulating Muslims who have left the faith.
He also accused German authorities of not doing enough to combat what he referred to as "Europe's Islamism."
Christmas markets are a cherished German festive tradition dating back to the Middle Ages, now successfully exported to much of the Western world.
Magdeburg is a city of about 240,000 inhabitants west of Berlin that serves as the capital of Saxony-Anhalt. The attack on Friday occurred eight years after an Islamic extremist drove a truck into a crowded Christmas market in Berlin, killing 13 people and injuring many others. The attacker was killed days later in a shootout in Italy.
How was the attack at the Christmas market in Magdeburg?
Verified images from eyewitnesses distributed by the German news agency DPA showed the arrest of the suspect at a tram stop in the middle of the road. A nearby police officer pointing a gun at the man shouts at him while the subject lies face down, with his head slightly arched. Other officers surrounded the suspect and took him into custody.
Thi Linh Chi Nguyen, a 34-year-old Vietnamese manicurist whose salon is located in a shopping center across from the Christmas market, was on the phone during a break when she heard loud bangs and initially thought they were fireworks. She then saw a car speeding through the market. People were screaming and a child was thrown into the air by the car.
Trembling as she described the horror of what she witnessed, she remembered seeing the car leave the market and turn right onto Ernst-Reuter-Allee street, and then stop at the tram stop where the suspect was arrested.