Police have arrested a man after a car drove into a union demonstration in central Munich on Thursday, injuring at least 30 people, including children. Authorities said the incident was believed to be an attack.
The suspect, a 24-year-old Afghan asylum seeker, is being questioned. The incident follows a series of attacks involving immigrants in recent months that have pushed migration to the forefront of the campaign for Germany’s 23 February election.
At least two people are fighting for their lives after the Mini Cooper was driven into a protest organised by trade union Verdi.
The attack took place about one mile away from the venue of the Munich Security Conference which begins on Friday, with US vice-president JD Vance and Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky due to arrive in the city on Thursday.
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Police fired gunshots at the car after it weaved between the police vehicles tailing the demonstration and drove into the crowd. Witnesses told of hearing an “engine roar” and “wheels spinning”, with images showing dozens of police surrounding a smashed-up Mini Cooper as debris was strewn across the floor in the wake of the crash.
At a press briefing on Thursday, Bavarian governor Markus Söder said the incident was “suspected to be an attack”. Investigations are being carried out by the Bavarian Central Office for Combating Extremism and Terrorism, state minister Georg Eisenreich added.
Although eyewitnesses told Bild that two men were seen in the Mini, police said they “cannot confirm” whether more than one person was involved.
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Udo Kunte told Merkur, a local newspaper: “Suddenly there was an engine roar behind us, wheels spinning and then there was just a clattering.”
Another demonstrator told Bayerischer Rundfunk, a Munich-based public radio station: “I was in the demonstration and saw that a man was lying under the car. Then I tried to open the door, but it was locked.”
Munich’s mayor Dieter Reiter told Bild: “The police chief has just informed me that a vehicle drove into a group of people and unfortunately many people were injured, including children. I am deeply shocked. My thoughts are with the injured.”
The alleged attacker was already known to police for drug-related offences and shoplifting, Bavarian interior minister Joachim Herrmann told reporters.
Verdi, Germany’s second largest trade union with around 1.9 million members, had called a strike for childcare workers to call for better wages and working conditions.
Frank Werneke, the union’s chair, told The Independent in a statement that they are “deeply dismayed and shocked” by the incident. “This is a difficult moment for all colleagues. We unions stand for solidarity, especially in such a dark hour.”
The strike had been called after employers failed to submit a final offer in January negotiations. The union promised to “noticeably increase the pressure until the second round of negotiations on February 17th and 18th”.
Journalist Sandra Demmelhuber wrote in a post on X: “A person was lying on the street and a young man was taken away by the police. People were sitting on the ground, crying and shaking. Details still unclear.”
Traffic disruptions are expected around the scene and police have asked people to avoid the area so emergency services can carry out their work.
Authorities have set up a collection point for witness statements and a care centre for those psychologically impacted by the suspected attack.
The Munich incident comes three weeks after a two-year-old boy and a man were killed in a knife attack in Aschaffenburg, also in Bavaria.
An Afghan whose asylum application was rejected was the suspect in that attack, which propelled migration to the centre of the German election campaign.
The Aschaffenburg attack followed knife attacks in Mannheim and in Solingen last year in which the suspects were immigrants from Afghanistan and Syria, respectively – in the latter case, also a rejected asylum-seeker who was supposed to have left the country.
In the December Christmas market car ramming in Magdeburg, the suspect was a Saudi doctor who previously had come to various regional authorities’ attention.
