A 14-year-old girl died and a 13-year-old girl was seriously injured after they were attacked by a man with a knife on their way to school in southwest Germany on Monday, police said.
Police in Ulm said first responders resuscitated the older girl before she was rushed to a hospital following the attack at about 7:30am in the nearby town of Illerkirchberg.
“Despite all efforts by the doctors she died there,” police said in a statement.
Photo: Reuters
The younger girl remains in the hospital with serious but not life-threatening injuries, they said.
Both girls had German citizenship.
A 27-year-old man was arrested by officers inside a refugee shelter near the scene of the attack.
The man, who was found with injuries and a knife, is of Eritrean origin, police said.
Two other men were also detained.
Investigators were trying to determine a motive for the attack and whether the suspect and the girls knew each other before it happened.
Germany’s top security official expressed shock at the attack.
“I grieve with the girl who was killed and hope fervently that the injured recovers her health,” German Minister of the Interior and Community Nancy Faeser wrote on Twitter. “My thoughts are with their families at this time.”
In their statement, police urged people to refrain from stoking suspicion against refugees, asylum seekers and other foreigners.
Separately, the western city of Duesseldorf on Monday closed Christmas markets in its historic city center as a precaution after police received a threat against one of them, police said.
A city spokesperson said the old town, including the city hall, had been closed off, but did not give a reason.
The Bild newspaper, which first reported the closures, said a caller had threatened to crash a truck into the market at the city hall.
Officers were on site, but the situation was calm, police said.
Just more than a week ago, police in Berlin closed roads and stepped up security around the Alexanderplatz Christmas market due to a phoned-in threat.
Berliner Zeitung reported at the time that an unidentified person had called police saying he planned to plough his vehicle into the crowds of revelers.
Police gave the all-clear after about three hours, saying it was investigating suspected abuse of the emergency hotline.
Twelve people were killed in 2016 when a man drove a stolen truck into a busy Christmas market in Berlin.
Additional reporting by Reuters
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