Police hunting for an unknown assailant hours after he killed three people and wounded eight in a stabbing attack at a festival in the western German city of Solingen yesterday said they had detained an individual.
Police said in the afternoon they were investigating whether there was a possible link to the attack.
“The investigation and manhunt for possible further perpetrators and reasons for the crime are in full swing,” the police said.
Photo: AFP
Police closed off the city center after the attack on Friday night at the city’s “Festival of Diversity.”
Five of the wounded were in “serious” condition, a police statement said.
Special forces were helping security personnel in the city center, while a helicopter flew overhead.
“Our security authorities are doing everything they can to catch the perpetrator” of the “horrific act,” German Minister of the Interior and Community Nancy Faeser said, while German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said the attacker “must be caught quickly and punished.”
Thousands of people had gathered in front of a stage on the first night of the festival, part of a series of events to mark Solingen’s 650th anniversary, when the killing started.
“An unidentified man attacked several people with a knife around 9:40pm,” said a statement released by police in the nearby city of Duesseldorf.
“Police are currently searching for the perpetrator with a large contingent,” it added, encouraging witnesses to send them photographs, videos and any other information about the attack.
“Out of nowhere, a man armed with a knife stabbed people at random and killed them,” German Minister of the Interior of North Rhine-Westphalia Herbert Reul said in comments at the scene.
“Why? Nobody knows. We cannot say anything yet about the motive,” he added.
Witness Lars Breitzke told the Solinger Tageblatt that he was a few meters from the attack, not far from the festival stage, and “understood from the expression on the singer’s face that something was wrong.”
“And then, a meter away from me, a person fell,” said Breitzke, who at first thought it was someone who had too much to drink.
When he turned around, he saw other people lying on the ground amid pools of blood.
Solingen Mayor Tim-Oliver Kurzbach said in a statement that the whole city was in “shock, horror and great grief.”
“We all wanted to celebrate our town’s anniversary together and now we have to mourn the dead and injured,” he said.
“It tears my heart apart that there was an attack on our city. I have tears in my eyes when I think of those we have lost. I pray for all those who are still fighting for their lives,” he said.
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