Police and ambulances near the scene where people were killed and injured in an attack at a festival in Solingen, western Germany, German news agency dpa reported, Friday, August 23, 2024.
Gianni Gattus/AP
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Gianni Gattus/AP
SOLINGEN, Germany — A knife-wielding attacker killed three people and seriously injured at least five on Friday night at a festival in the western German city of Solingen, authorities said.
Witnesses reported to police just after 9.30pm that an unknown assailant had indiscriminately injured people with a knife in the central square, Fronhof. Police said the attacker was on the run and so far they have little information about the man.
They said they believed the stabbing was carried out by a lone attacker.
One of the festival’s organizers, Philipp Müller, appeared on stage and asked festival-goers to “stay calm; keep your eyes open, because unfortunately the perpetrator has not been caught yet”.
Several people were injured by “a knife-wielding individual,” he said.
At least one helicopter was seen overhead, while several police cars and ambulances with flashing blue lights were on the road and several streets were blocked off.
Police put the number of seriously injured at five. The region’s top security official, Herbert Reul, put the number at six when he arrived at the scene early Saturday morning.
The party atmosphere quickly turned to shock.
“None of us know why” the attack happened, said Reul, the interior minister of North Rhine-Westphalia state.
“I can’t say anything about the motive at this point” and it is still unclear who the attacker was, he said, adding that the attacker left the scene “relatively quickly”.
Mayor Tim Kurzbach said in a Facebook post that “tonight, all of us in Solingen are in shock. We all wanted to celebrate our city’s anniversary together and now we have dead and injured to mourn.”
“I am heartbroken that our city has been attacked again,” he added.
Local newspaper Solinger Tageblatt “The atmosphere was eerie,” festival reporter Celine Derikartz said. She said the party atmosphere turned to shock in just a few minutes and she saw festival-goers crying.
The “Diversity Festival,” marking the city’s 650th anniversary, began on Friday and is scheduled to run through Sunday, with several stages on downtown streets offering attractions such as live music, cabaret and acrobatics.
The city canceled the rest of the festival following the attack.
Solingen has about 160,000 inhabitants and is located near the major cities of Cologne and Duesseldorf.
There has been concern recently about the rise in knife violence in Germany.
In May, a knife attack by an Afghan immigrant on members of a group that claims to oppose “political Islam” left a police officer dead.
Germany’s top security official, Interior Minister Nancy Faeser, this month proposed tightening weapons laws to only allow knives with blades up to 6 centimeters (nearly 2.4 inches) long to be carried in public, instead of the current 12 centimeters (4.7 inches).
