The car crashed into the back of a demonstration by a service workers’ union.
At least 28 people were injured after a car drove into a group of people in Munich, Germany, on Thursday, in what authorities have described as a suspected “attack.”
Police said the car crashed into the back of a demonstration by a service workers’ union that was taking place in a square near downtown Munich around 10:30 a.m. local time.
Among the 28 injured, two are seriously hurt, police said in a statement posted on social media platform X. “Numerous emergency personnel are still on-site around the scene of the incident. Providing care for the injured is currently the top priority. Please support the rescue workers by keeping emergency routes clear.” Police also confirmed that they had fired a shot at the car during their response.
Bavarian State Interior Minister Joachim Herrmann said the suspect was already known to authorities in connection with theft and drug offenses.
The driver of the vehicle has been identified as a 24-year-old Afghan asylum seeker, according to Bavarian Minister-President Markus Söder.
Söder said that the incident was “probably an attack.”
He said in a statement on
X: “One thing is clear: we always react prudently—but we are also determined. This is not the first attack of this kind. Sympathy and coming to terms with the past are important. But something fundamental has to change in Germany.”
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz labeled the attack “really terrible.”
“Anyone who commits crimes in Germany will not just be punished severely and have to go to prison, but must expect that he cannot continue his stay in Germany—and that also goes for countries that it is very difficult to send people back to,” he said.
He also pointed out that his government had deported convicted criminals to Afghanistan in August and is working to do so again “continually.”
Munich will host its annual international security conference on Friday. World leaders, including U.S. Vice President JD Vance and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, are expected to attend the event, which has been held in the city since 1963.
Last month, another Afghan male, aged 28, was
arrested after a 2-year-old boy and a 41-year-old man were stabbed to death in a park in the Bavarian city of Aschaffenburg.
Other attacks by foreign nationals have also recently taken place, with one in Magdeburg, where a Saudi doctor plowed into 200 people, killing five, at a Christmas market on Dec. 20, 2024.
A knife attack by a Syrian, who pledged allegiance to the ISIS terrorist group, left three dead in Solingen in August 2024, while another stabbing by an Afghan in Mannheim in May 2024 left a police officer dead.
Reuters, The Associated Press, and Owen Evans contributed to this report.
