Car mows down demonstrators in Germany
A car has ploughed into a crowd of demonstrators in Munich, Germany, injuring at least 30 people, including children.
The suspected attack in the southern German city came only hours before international leaders, including US Vice President JD Vance and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, were due to arrive in the city for the Munich Security Conference.
Police said a white car had approached police vehicles that were accompanying a demonstration of striking trade union workers, before speeding up and hitting people.
Deputy police chief Christian Huber said officers arrested the 24-year-old driver after firing a shot at the car. His motive was unclear.
“It was probably an attack,” Bavaria state premier Markus Söder said.
At least 30 people were injured as a car sped into the rear of a trade union demonstration. Image: AAP
The suspect was a 24-year-old Afghan asylum seeker, Huber said.
He came to Germany at the end of 2016 as an unaccompanied minor refugee.
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His asylum procedure was finalised in 2020 with a rejection notice and an order to leave the country.
Söder called the apparent attack “a punch in the face” for Germany and said there must be consequences once authorities determined exactly what happened.
It is the latest in a series of attacks involving immigrants in recent months that have pushed migration to the forefront of the campaign for Germany’s February 23 election.
In December, six people were killed in an attack on a Christmas market in Magdeburg and last month a toddler and adult died in a knife attack in the Bavarian town of Aschaffenburg.
Immigrants have been arrested over both attacks.
Conservative Friedrich Merz, the frontrunner to be Germany’s next chancellor, said safety would be his top priority.
“We will enforce law and order. Everyone must feel safe in our country again. Something has to change in Germany,” Merz posted on X.
Social Democrat Chancellor Olaf Scholz said the perpetrator could not hope for leniency.
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“He must be punished and he must leave the country,” said Scholz, according to news outlet Focus Online.
“If it was an attack, we must take consistent action against possible perpetrators with all means of justice.”
About four hours after the incident, the street where it happened was strewn with clothing and bags, a shoe and a pair of glasses.
Police set up a gathering point for witnesses in the Loewenbraeukeller, one of Munich’s oldest beer halls.
A passer-by said he witnessed the incident from a window of a neighbouring office building.
The car, a white Mini Cooper, had threaded its way between the police vehicles and then accelerated, he said.
Another witness said she had seen part of the incident from a building.
The car had accelerated and hit several people in the crowd, she said.
People in the crowd were involved in a strike by the Verdi public sector workers’ union. Its leader, Frank Werneke, expressed shock but said he had no further details.
Bavaria’s interior minister said he did not suspect any connection to the Munich Security Conference, which starts on Friday.
-with Reuters and DPA
