BERLIN: German Chancellor Friedrich Merz vowed Sunday (Jul 26) to punish these accountable after a automobile struck individuals on the outskirts of Berlin’s Homosexual Delight celebrations, killing not less than one particular person and wounding 16 others.
The assault pressured organisers to chop brief one among Europe’s largest Delight occasions and comes as Germany stays on edge after a sequence of lethal automobile and knife assaults in recent times.
“A automobile entered the Tiergarten park and hit a number of individuals” simply earlier than 10pm (5am, Singapore time) on Saturday, police posted on social media, including that they have been attempting to find the occupants of the automobile.
Berlin hearth division spokesman Dominik Pretz mentioned one particular person died and 16 others have been injured.
Police advised AFP they’d discovered the automobile they suspected had been concerned within the incident deserted within the Tiergarten park.
Merz mentioned in an announcement early Sunday that he and Inside Minister Alexander Dobrindt have been being saved knowledgeable of the investigation into the “horrific act”.
Berlin Mayor Kai Wegner mentioned in a publish on X {that a} “gathering for a tolerant and peaceable Berlin has been most brutally attacked”.
The Homosexual Delight occasion was lower brief and police advised contributors to “go house, please” and sealed off the realm the place the individuals have been injured.
An eyewitness by the primary Delight stage at Brandenburg Gate mentioned the gang complied with the request and moved away from the park.
The programme on the foremost stage had been scheduled to proceed till midnight.
An AFP journalist on the scene noticed not less than 10 emergency autos and a tent arrange on the roadway, whereas police patrols moved via the huge park space.
VIOLENT ATTACKS
Earlier Saturday, tons of of hundreds of individuals took half within the occasion, known as Christopher Avenue Day in Germany, which is likely one of the greatest Delight occasions in Europe.
The march ended subsequent to the Brandenburg Gate, which has been the venue for live shows since Friday.
Germany has in recent times seen a number of violent assaults at public areas, together with a stabbing in February 2025 at Berlin’s Holocaust memorial, a stone’s throw from the scene of Saturday’s incident, through which a Spanish vacationer was critically injured.
A Syrian man named solely as Wassim Al M was jailed in March for 13 years for that assault, with the courtroom discovering he acted within the identify of the so-called Islamic State group.
Final month, Taleb Jawad al-Abdulmohsen, a 51-year-old Saudi psychiatrist, was sentenced to life in jail for killing six individuals and wounding greater than 300.
He drove a rented SUV via a crowded Christmas market in 2024 within the easter metropolis of Magedburg.
Abdulmohsen was an anti-Islam activist and his testimony at his trial was generally incoherent and riddled with conspiracy theories and fringe far-right concepts.
The deadliest such assault in recent times was a truck rampage at a Berlin Christmas market in December 2016 that killed 12 individuals.
