The small town of Solingen in western Germany is in shock after an unknown assailant stabbed three people to death and injured eight others, five of them seriously, during a festival celebrating the town’s 650th anniversary on Friday night. Police have launched a major operation to catch the killer, a man whose physical description has not yet been given. Officers have also not yet found the weapon used in the crime.
The incident occurred at around 9.45pm, when the city of about 160,000 inhabitants was celebrating the so-called diversity festival, a three-day festival to commemorate the anniversary of its founding. The attack, which the police have not yet classified as “terrorist”, took place right in front of one of the three stages, when a music group was playing live.
“We currently have no clue as to his whereabouts,” a police spokesman told ARD public television. The attacker managed to flee amid the confusion and panic that initially ensued after the attack. Witnesses nearby were left in shock. “It is a big problem. We still do not have much information about the perpetrator,” the spokesman said. Witnesses “are receiving our professional support and we are of course questioning them to obtain more precise information,” he added. Police assume that there was only one attacker who stabbed his victims in the neck. “We have no evidence of any other people,” the same source said.
Police are appealing for public help in catching the attacker. A website has been set up so anyone with videos or other clues can upload them for analysis. Police have spent the night questioning both the injured victims and the many witnesses to the incident. The city had drawn thousands of people for a weekend-long festival of fun and entertainment that has been cancelled.
Shortly after the attack, one of the event’s organisers, Philipp Müller, came out onto the main stage to report what had happened and to ask the attendees to calmly leave the square. Müller said that the emergency services were working to save the lives of several people seriously injured by a man with a knife who was still on the run, as can be seen in a video broadcast on social media and on television. As he made the announcement, cries of astonishment could be heard among the attendees.
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The local newspaper Solinger Tageblatt The newspaper quoted an eyewitness, Lars Breitzke, who was standing in front of the main stage when the crime took place. He said he realised something was wrong when he saw the expression on the face of the singer who was performing at the time, Suzan Köcher. “Then a person fell to the ground a metre away from me,” said the witness, who at first thought it was a drunk. When he turned around, he saw other people lying on the ground and several pools of blood, the newspaper reported.
The search extends beyond the city limits; numerous roadblocks have been set up in the vicinity of Solingen and police helicopters have been combing the area throughout the night. The city centre remains blocked off with roadblocks and the public has been asked not to approach so as not to disrupt police work. The attack took place at the Fronhof, the market square in the centre of Solingen.
North Rhine-Westphalia President Hendrik Wüst described the attack as a “most brutal and senseless act of violence” on his X account. Interior Minister Nancy Faeser also expressed shock. “We are deeply shocked by the brutal attack on the Solingen town festival. We are mourning the people whose lives were taken in a terrible way. My thoughts are with the families of the deceased and the seriously injured.”
The brutal Anschlag auf das Stadtfest in Solingen erschüttert uns zutiefst. Wir trauern um die Menschen, die auf furchtbare Weise aus dem Leben geissen wurden. Meine Gedanken sind bei den Familien der Getöteten und bei den Schwerverletzten. (1/2)
— Nancy Faeser (@NancyFaeser) August 24, 2024
Shortly before midnight, Mayor Tim Kurzbach said on social media: “Tonight we are all shocked, horrified and very sad in Solingen. We wanted to celebrate the anniversary of our city together and now we have to mourn the dead and injured. It breaks my heart that there was an attack in our city. It brings tears to my eyes when I think of those we have lost. I pray for all those who are still fighting for their lives.”
There has been growing concern in Germany over knife attacks recently, after several cases have resulted in deaths and injuries. Earlier this month, the government announced its intention to tighten the rules on the possession of knives in public. The proposal put forward by Interior Minister Nancy Faeser is to reduce the maximum permitted length from 12 to six centimetres.
The trigger for this legal change was the death of a 29-year-old police officer in Mannheim last June. The officer was stabbed by an Afghan man during an attack on a far-right rally in a city square in broad daylight. The detainee, a 25-year-old man born in Afghanistan and resident in Germany since 2014, married with two children, attacked the organisers of the rally, Islamophobic activists who were preparing to hold a rally. The police officer intervened and was stabbed several times in the back of the neck.
In November 2021, another knife attack occurred on a high-speed train in Bavaria, southern Germany, leaving three people seriously injured. A 27-year-old Syrian man was arrested as the suspected perpetrator. Another attack in June of that year left three dead and several injured in Würzburg, Bavaria, after a man attacked passers-by with a knife. Police arrested a 24-year-old Somali man with a psychiatric history after shooting him in the leg to kill him.
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