Death Toll Rises to 5, Including a 9-Year-Old, After Man Drives Car into Hundreds of Shoppers at Christmas Market

12/21/2024 02:22 PM

The Dec. 20 attack in Germany left more than 200 people injured

The death toll from the attack in Germany — where a man drove a car into shoppers at a high speed during a Christmas market — rose to five people, including a child who was 9 years old, as of Saturday, Dec. 21.

On Friday, Dec. 20, a man drove through a holiday market in Magdeburg, Germany, west of Berlin, in what officials are calling a "terrible" event that resulted in deaths, multiple serious injuries and an arrest at gunpoint, according to ABC News and NBC News.

Officials referred to the incident as a terror attack, with footage from the market showing many people on the ground as emergency services arrived at the scene.

Authorities have since announced that they've arrested a suspect, a 50-year-old doctor from Saudi Arabia who has lived in Germany since 2006, per the Associated Press. Reiner Haseloff, premier of the state of Saxony-Anhalt, told reporters that the suspect acted alone and that there was no ongoing threat to the public, per NBC News, which reported that the vehicle reportedly drove around 1,200 feet into the alley full of shoppers.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said that 40 of the 200 injured people "are so seriously injured that we must be very worried" about them, according to the AP. "There is no more peaceful and cheerful place than a Christmas market," Scholz added. "What a terrible act it is to injure and kill so many people there with such brutality."

Per CNN, the Christmas market featured 140 market stalls, an ice skating rink, a ferris wheel and more, as it was scheduled to be open from Nov. 22 to Dec. 29.

Horst Walter Nopens, lead prosecutor of the Magdeburg Prosecutor's Office, said on Saturday that the victims included a 9-year-old. He added that the suspect faces "5 charges of homicide and 200 cases of attempted homicide and aggravated assault," according to CNN.

Roughly 80 patients were brought to Magdeburg's university hospital on Friday night, Neurosurgeon Mahmoud Elenbaby told the AP, adding that "many are still in intensive care, and some are also in critical condition."

In a social media update, the Magdeburg Saxony-Anhalt police department wrote on X that authorities "continue to ask for witness reports, photos and videos of the events at the Magdeburg Christmas market" be sent to them.

Interior Minister Nancy Faeser told reporters that the suspect was "clearly Islamophobic," per NBC News. The AP reported that the man identified himself on social media as a former Muslim and criticized Islam on X (formerly Twitter). Citing local outlets, the AP reported that the suspect has since been identified only as Taleb A. (with his last name being withheld due to local privacy laws).

Saudi Arabia's Ministry of Foreign Affairs shared on X its "solidarity with the German people and the families of the victims."

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Thi Linh Chi Nguyen — who was working nearby the market at a salon — told the AP that she saw the vehicle drive through the market at a high speed, and a child being thrown into the air, before police stopped the suspect at a nearby tram stop.

"My husband and I helped them for two hours. He ran back home and grabbed as many blankets as he could find because they didn't have enough to cover the injured people. And it was so cold," she said.

Bystander footage from German news agency dpa, and the AP, showed police detaining the suspect at gunpoint. As one officer pointed a gun at the suspect, multiple vehicles arrived to the scene and other officers then surrounded him.

"For me it's important that when such a terrible, awful event happens, a terrible attack in which so many people were injured and killed, almost on the anniversary of the Breitscheidplatz terror attack in Berlin, that we as a country stay together and stick together," Scholz told reporters, per CNN, referring to a 2016 attack at a Christmas market in Berlin.

A memorial service is set to be held at Magdeburg Cathedral at 7 p.m. local time on Saturday, with crowds already paying their respects outside of the church.