BERLIN, Germany (AFP) — A 2-year-old child and a man were killed by a man wielding a knife, in Germany, on Wednesday. He also seriously wounded two other people, said police, who arrested an Afghan suspect at the scene.
It is the latest in a series of deadly knife attacks to have shaken Germany in recent months, fueling concerns over public safety.
The stabbings happened in a public park in the center of the Bavarian city of Aschaffenburg at around 11:45 a.m. (1045 GMT), police said.
The attacker targeted a group of children from a daycare center who were in the park, according to German media.
“Two people were fatally injured,” police said, while two others were seriously hurt and receiving treatment in hospital.
The suspect, a 28-year-old man from Afghanistan, was arrested “in the immediate vicinity of the crime scene,” police added, without indicating a motive.
German media reported that the man was said to have psychological issues for which he had received treatment. The suspect lived in an asylum center in the area, news outlet Der Spiegel reported.
German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser gives a press statement following a hearing of a parliamentary committee focusing on the Magdeburg Christmas Market attack, on December 30, 2024 at a parliamentary building in Berlin. (John MACDOUGALL / AFP)
Interior Minister Nancy Faeser said she was “deeply shocked” by the attack.
“The investigation will clarify the background to this terrible act of violence,” she said in a statement.
Following the attack police said there were “no indications of other suspects” and no further danger to the public.
A second person who was held by police was being treated as a witness.
Authorities had cordoned off the park in Aschaffenburg, around 36 kilometers (22 miles) southeast of Frankfurt in the west of Germany.
Police said train traffic around the scene had been suspended, with services delayed or diverted.
The suspect tried to flee across the train tracks, the Sueddeutsche Zeitung newspaper reported.
Police officers pay their respects in front of a wreath laid at the Baden-Wuerttemberg representation in Berlin on June 7, 2024, following a silent march by police officers and their relatives for a police comrade killed in an attack in Mannheim. (John MACDOUGALL / AFP)
Shaken by stabbings
Germany has been rocked by a spate of high-profile attacks, including the death of a policeman in June, after he intervened in a knife attack at an anti-Islam rally in the city of Mannheim.
A man from Afghanistan was arrested on suspicion of carrying out the stabbing.
In August, three people were killed and eight wounded in a stabbing spree at a street festival in the western city of Solingen.
The attack was claimed by the Islamic State group, and police arrested a Syrian suspect.
The presumed Islamist motive behind the stabbing in Solingen and the suspect’s status as a migrant who was facing deportation fueled a bitter debate over immigration.
The government responded to the incident by tightening controls on knives, limiting benefits for asylum seekers and handing the security services new powers of investigation.
Members of the fire brigade clean away the blood at the scene where several people were injured in a knife attack on May 31, 2024, in Mannheim, western Germany. (Kirill Kudryavtsev/AFP)
Wednesday’s attack in Aschaffenburg comes as Germany prepares for national elections on February 23.
The conservative CDU/CSU alliance currently leads in the polls on around 30 percent, with the far-right, anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany (AfD) in second with 20%.
Both parties have promised to crack down on illegal immigration.
The conservatives have also pledged a “de facto” ban on new asylum requests at the border.
In response to the latest attack, the co-leader of the AfD Alice Weidel posted a message on X urging “remigration now!” — using a term that the far right have adopted to call for the mass deportation of migrants.
Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s center-left Social Democrats sit third in the polls with around 16% of support.
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