Two people have died and others are in life-threatening condition after a car was driven at “high speed” through a crowd in the city of Leipzig.
Emergency services declared a mass casualty incident in the eastern German city of Leipzig on Monday afternoon after a car was driven “at high speed” through a pedestrianised city-centre area. Two people are confirmed dead and several more, likely dozens, are injured, two of them critically, after being struck by the driver’s vehicle.
A suspect, said to be the driver, has been arrested. German daily newspaper Die Welt reports a police source stating the suspect is showing signs of mental illness, and that the mayor of Leipzig stated of the incident: “We don’t yet know the exact motive; we don’t know anything about the perpetrator”.
The car was driven into a crowd in a pedestrianised city-centre area on Monday afternoon, racing down a shopping street and into the market square. The car came to a halt close to the city’s historic Cloth Hall market building.
Whether this incident was an attack or an accident is not clear. But Europe now has years of dark experience with car-ramming attacks carried out for terrorist motives, a technique first honest by Islamists in Israel and then exported to the continent.
This story is developing, more follows.