Tuesday, February 25, 2020
By
AFP

'Almost 60' injured as man rams car into carnival in German town

By
AFP
|
Police vehicles and fire brigades stand at the site where a man who drove into a carnival procession in Volkmarsen near Kassel, Germany, February 25, 2020. AFP/Ina Fassbender

VOLKMARSEN: "Almost 60" people were injured as a man rammed his car into a carnival procession in the German town on Tuesday, unsettling a country rocked by a fatal mass shooting last week and sending authorities in a frenzy to determine the driver's motives.

In an afternoon statement, police said the number injured had now reached "almost 60" and asked those hurt in the incident or with possible evidence to come forward.

Investigators said the 29-year-old German driver had not been drunk at the time of the incident on Monday but could not yet rule out that he was under the influence of drugs, national news agency DPA reported.

The suspect has still not been questioned because of his own injuries, a police spokesperson told reporters near the scene of the incident in Hessian town Volkmarsen.

Among the injured in the ramming were 18 children aged from just three years.

It followed just days after a gunman with suspected racist motives killed nine people with migrant backgrounds in Hanau, also in western Hesse state, prompting fears of a repeat attack.

Read more: Suspected right-wing extremist kills nine in shisha bar rampage

Officials cancelled all carnival parades across the state Monday, while a children's procession was called off Tuesday in state capital Wiesbaden. But authorities have stopped short of calling the incident an attack until they know more about the driver's motives.

"I saw him drive off, he looked as if he was on drugs and said 'soon I'll be in the papers'," a neighbour of the suspect told German broadcaster RTL.

Nevertheless, prosecutors in Frankfurt have opened an investigation on suspicion of attempted homicide. They added that they had also arrested a second person who filmed the car rampage, citing a privacy law against gawkers.

'Children lying on ground'

Eyewitnesses described how the man ploughed his silver Mercedes at high speed through a barrier and into crowds at the traditional "Rose Monday" parade in Volkmarsen, a small town in Hesse state.

"My wife called me and I ran out there straight away. I saw my daughter lying bleeding on the ground," 33-year-old Sven Hirdler told mass-market daily Bild.

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Hirdler's four-year-old child Emilia escaped with relatively light injuries and a concussion.

On Tuesday morning, carnival floats and balloons were still in place around Volkmarsen, while emergency vehicles remained at the scene as the perpetrator's car was hauled away.

Hessian police said 35 of the injured remained in hospital while 17 had already returned home.

Climate of fear

As in many parts of the country, residents in Volkmarsen were celebrating Rose Monday, a highlight of annual carnival festivities that sees adults and children dress up and attend parades where people play music and throw candies from floats.

The party — traditionally celebrated mostly in western Germany — had been a welcome relief for a country shaken by Wednesday's deadly Hanau shootings.

Also read: Racism, hatred 'a poison' in society, says Merkel after German mass shootings

The rampage fuelled concerns over the country's increasingly emboldened far-right scene, after a pro-migrant politician was murdered in June and an anti-Semitic attack on a synagogue left two dead in the city of Halle last October.

Meanwhile, the sight of a car ploughing through crowds recalled Germany's deadliest terror attack in recent history, when a extremist drove his truck into a crowded Berlin Christmas market, killing 12 people in December 2016.

The attacker, a failed Tunisian asylum seeker, had pledged allegiance to Daesh.

After the Hanau shootings, Interior Minister Horst Seehofer on Friday vowed to put more police at mosques, train stations, airports and borders.