At least five people were killed and 200 injured after a man drove a car into a bustling outdoor Christmas market in Magdeburg, Germany, on Friday night.
The number of victims in the attack, which police have said was deliberate, has shaken the European nation. Prosecutors said Saturday that a 9-year-old is among the fatalities, according to German news outlet Deutsche Welle. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz told reporters Saturday that nearly 40 of the wounded are critically injured.
An eyewitness told The Associated Press that she saw a car drive into the market at a high speed and heard people scream. She said she saw a small child thrown into the air.
The suspected driver, who was arrested at the site of the attack, is believed to have acted alone, Reiner Haseloff, premier of the state of Saxony-Anhalt, said Friday. The suspect was driving a rental vehicle, he added.
Authorities have identified the suspect as a 50-year-old doctor from Saudi Arabia who has lived in Germany for decades. A clinic in Bernburg, about 30 miles south of Magdeburg, confirmed to NBC News that the suspect was employed as a psychiatry specialist but had not worked since October due to “vacation and illness.”
Interior Minister Nancy Faeser said Saturday that the man was “clearly Islamophobic,” but police have not yet determined a motive.
Saudi Arabia’s foreign ministry condemned the attack in a statement that did not mention the suspect’s nationality. U.S. State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller wrote on X that the administration is “horrified” by the attack.
Magdeburg, a city of about 240,000 and the capital of Saxony-Anhalt, lies west of Berlin. Its Christmas market, like those in cities across Germany, is a longtime holiday tradition that has caught on in other countries.
“There is no place more peaceful and joyful than a Christmas market,” Scholz told reporters on Saturday. “What a terrible act it is to injure and kill so many people there with such brutality.”
Since the attack, cities across Germany have deployed additional security to their Christmas markets. Magdeburg police said that its Christmas market has been closed due to extensive police operations.