A car-ramming attack at a Christmas market in Magdeburg on Friday evening left at least five people dead and more than 200 injured, officials said. Authorities arrested a 50-year-old Saudi national, suspected of driving the car into the crowd, in connection with the incident.
The attack, which occurred as market visitors celebrated the festive pre-Christmas season, has heightened security concerns and reignited debate over migration policies amid an election campaign in Germany, where far-right parties are gaining ground in opinion polls.
Chancellor Olaf Scholz expressed sorrow and outrage during a visit to the city in the former East Germany. “What a terrible act it is to injure and kill so many people with such brutality,” Scholz said after laying a white rose at a local church to honor the victims. He confirmed that over 200 people were injured, with nearly 40 in critical condition.
German authorities are investigating the suspect, identified in local media as Taleb A., a Saudi doctor who has lived in Germany for almost two decades. Police searched his home overnight, but the motive for the attack remains unclear.
A Saudi official told Reuters that the kingdom had warned German authorities about the suspect after he reportedly posted extremist content on his X account, threatening peace and security.
The suspect is also alleged to have shown sympathy for Germany’s far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, according to a report by Der Spiegel. However, the magazine did not specify the source of this information.
Germany’s domestic intelligence agency declined to comment on the ongoing investigation, while FAZ newspaper noted that it had interviewed the suspect in 2019, describing him as an anti-Islam activist. “People like me, who have an Islamic background but are no longer believers, are met with neither understanding nor tolerance by Muslims here,” he was quoted as saying.
Andrea Reis, who was at the market with her daughter Julia on Friday, recounted their narrow escape. “I said, ‘let’s go and get a sausage,’ but my daughter wanted to keep walking. If we’d stayed, we might have been in the car’s path,” she said, tearfully recalling the chaos. “Children screaming, crying for mama. You can’t forget that.”
The attack has added urgency to Germany’s heated political climate ahead of snap elections on February 23. Scholz’s Social Democrats are trailing the far-right AfD and the leading conservative opposition in the polls.
AfD leaders Alice Weidel and Tino Chrupalla condemned the attack in a joint statement. “The terrible attack on the Christmas market in Magdeburg during the peaceful pre-Christmas season has shaken us,” they said.
Dirk Wiese, a prominent Social Democrat lawmaker, cautioned against jumping to conclusions about the suspect’s motives. “Now we have to wait for the investigations. It seems that things are different here than was initially assumed,” Wiese told the Rheinische Post newspaper.
