BERLIN — Two people were killed and seven others injured in a crash on a train in northern Germany on Wednesday afternoon.
The attack happened just before 3 p.m. on a regional train traveling from the northern city of Kiel to Hamburg. According to eyewitnesses, just before the train reached the town of Brokstedt, about halfway through, a man started stabbing passengers at random.
It’s not clear exactly how the attack ended. A witness told t-online news site that he held the attacker after the man put down the knife until police could arrest him.
The attacker, which authorities have identified as a 33-year-old Palestinian man, was arrested at the train station in Brokstedt, 40 miles north of Hamburg. Alerted by the passenger along the way, the police were waiting for him when the train arrived. No further information about the suspect has been released. A motive is not immediately obvious.
Witnesses described carnage with blood visible along some of the carriages. Police officers, who questioned witnesses in Brokstedt, said around 70 people were on board during the attack.
Nancy Faeser, the federal interior minister responsible for public safety, has promised a prompt investigation. She said: “The background of the crime is currently being investigated at full speed.
Police said the attacker, who was also seriously injured and being treated in hospital, will be questioned as soon as he gets better.
“It’s horrible,” Sabine Sütterlin-Waack, interior minister for the state of Schleswig-Holstein, where the train stopped, told a public television station. “We are all absolutely shocked and appalled that this has happened.” She added in a statement, “It is clear to me that this is an act of horror directed against all of humanity.”
The station was cordoned off and the train was stalled in the station as police investigated the attack. According to Germany’s national train service, train service on the line has been temporarily halted.
The attack follows other recent stabbings in the country, including one that killed a teenage girl in Illerkirchberg and another that killed three people in Würzburg. There have also been a number of attacks on trains in recent years. Common in Germany, trains usually don’t have extra security or police.
Last May, a 35-year-old man stabbed four people to death on a similar regional train in North Rhine-Westphalia. A judge recently ordered the detention of the attacker, who is from Iraq, in a psychiatric ward.
In November 2021, a 27-year-old man attacked four men on a high-speed train in Bavaria with a knife. The attacker, born in Palestine and raised in Syria, was sentenced to 14 years in prison.
And in 2016, police shot dead a 17-year-old attacker who attacked four people on a train with a knife and ax in Bavaria. The attacker identified himself as an Islamic State fighter from Afghanistan.
In Wednesday’s attack, three people were seriously injured, while four others escaped with minor injuries, according to police, who did not release the names of the victims.
Ms Faeser said: “I sincerely wish the injured a speedy recovery.
