The German police said that a driver led a car to a union demonstration in the center of Munich on Thursday, wounding at least 28 people, including children. The authorities said it was believed to be an attack.
Participants participated in a demonstration related to a strike organized by Verdi, the key union for the public sector of Germany. The protesters walked around 10:30 am when the car, a Mini Cooper, beat a police vehicle after the meeting and accelerated, and the driver crashed into the rear of the group, police said.
The suspect, who is believed to be a 24 -year -old Afghan asylum seeker, was arrested, according to Munich police director Christian Huber. The incident follows a series of attacks that involve immigrants in recent months that have pushed migration at the forefront of the campaign for Germany elections on February 23.
A view of the damaged car after a car got into a crowd in the city of southern Germany in Munich on February 13, 2025, hurting several people, according to local authorities.
Behlül çetinkaya/Anadolu through Getty Images
The Interior Minister of the State of Bavaria, Joachim Herrmann, said that the suspect was known by the authorities in relation to the robbery and drug crimes, but did not give more details. State Minister of Justice, Georg Eisenreich, said that a prosecuting department investigating extremism and terror were investigating the case.
“It is suspected that it is an attack, much points to that,” Bavaria Prime Minister Markus Söeder told reporters.
The officers arrested the suspect after shooting a car shot, according to Huber. He said it was believed that at least 28 people were injured, and some suffered serious injuries.
The damaged mini was seen on the scene, along with rubble that includes shoes, water bottles and a stroller.
A view of the scene after a car crashed into a crowd in the city of southern Germany in Munich on February 13, 2025, hurting several people, according to local authorities.
Behlul Cetinkaya/Anadolu through Getty Images
A witness, who said he saw the incident from a window of a neighboring office building, saw that the car had made its way between police vehicles and then accelerated, he said. Another witness, who said he had seen part of the incident of a building, saw the car accelerate and hit several people in the crowd.
“It was quick enough to take 10 to 15 people to the ground,” said a witness named Alexa to Reuters.
Get daily national news
Get the main news, political, economic and current headlines of the day, delivered to your entrance tray once a day.
He also described listening to one or two shots, who believed that they came from the police.
“It's simply terrible,” Söder told journalists from Baviera Söder on the scene. “We feel with the victims, we pray for the victims, we expect everyone to succeed.”
The mayor of Munich, Dieter, Reiter said he was “deeply surprised” by the incident. He said the children were among the injured.
The alleged attack also occurred hours before the main international figures, including American vice president JD Vance and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, were in the city for the Security Conference of Munich high profile, which begins on Friday.
The Interior Minister of Bavaria said he did not suspect that there was a connection between the conference and the alleged attack.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz told the media that “this is not something we can tolerate or accept.”
He urged the Judiciary to “use everything in his possession” to present charges against the suspect.
“Anyone who commits a crime in Germany will not only be severely punished and will go to jail, but also must understand that they could not continue residing in Germany,” he said.
Scholz said the suspect “must be punished and must leave the country.”
The Foreign Minister said that his government deported criminals convicted of Afghanistan on a flight in August 2024 and is working to do it again, “and not only once, but continuously.”
Mark Rutte, NATO general secretary, said “shock and sadness” for what he called an “attack.”
The capital of Bavara will see great security in the next few days due to the three -day Munich Security Conference, an annual meeting of international foreign policy and security officials.
Munich's incident occurs three weeks after a two -year -old boy and a man were killed in a knife attack in Aschaffenburg, also in Bavaria. An Afghan whose asylum application was rejected was the suspect in that attack, which promoted migration to the center of the German electoral campaign.
Aschaffenburg's attack followed the attacks of knives in Mannheim and soling last year in which the suspects were immigrants from Afghanistan and Syria, respectively, in the last case, also a rejected asylum seeker who was supposed to have abandoned the country .
In the car market of the Christmas market of December in Magdeburg, the suspect was a Saudi doctor who had previously caught the attention of several regional authorities.
The main conservative block of the opposition of Germany, in which Söder is a prominent figure, has demanded a harder approach to irregular migration, asking that many more people return to the borders of the country and an increase in deportations.
“This is more evidence that we cannot go attack on attack and show dismay, thanks the police for their deployment,” said Söder. “In fact, we have to change something. This is not the first act of this type; So, we feel with people today, but at the same time we are determined that something should change in Germany and quickly. “
– With Associated Press and Reuters files
& Copy 2025 Global News, a Division of Corus Entertainment Inc.