Tragedy Strikes: A 9-Year-Old Among Five Lives Lost in Devastating Incident

Individuals outside Magdeburg Cathedral attend a memorial service on Saturday for the victims of the Friday Christmas Market incident, where a car plowed into a crowd, in Magdeburg, Germany.

Ebrahim Noroozi/AP

hide caption

toggle caption

Ebrahim Noroozi/AP

MAGDEBURG, Germany — On Saturday, Germans grieved the individuals affected by an apparent attack where authorities claim a physician drove into a bustling outdoor Christmas market, resulting in five fatalities, injuring 200 others and unsettling the public’s sense of safety during a typically joyous time.

The suspected incident on Friday evening in Magdeburg, situated approximately 130 kilometers (80 miles) west of Berlin, caused the death of a 9-year-old child and four adults with 41 individuals suffering serious injuries, prompting authorities to caution that the fatality count could increase.

Magdeburg observed the sorrow on Saturday by tolling church bells at 7:04 p.m., the precise time of the incident in the city of roughly 240,000 residents.

The driver, a 50-year-old physician who immigrated from Saudi Arabia in 2006, surrendered to law enforcement at the site. He is facing an investigation for five counts of suspected homicide and 205 counts of suspected attempted homicide, prosecutor Horst Walter Nopens mentioned during a press briefing.

Investigators are examining whether the attack may have been driven by the suspect’s grievances regarding how Germany handles Saudi refugees, Nopens stated.

“There is no more tranquil and joyous place than a Christmas market,” Chancellor Olaf Scholz remarked. “What an atrocious act it is to injure and kill so many individuals there with such cruelty.”

More regarding the suspect’s arrest. Although Nopens referenced the treatment of Saudi immigrants, authorities indicated on Saturday that they remain uncertain as to why the individual drove his black BMW into the packed market.

While the suspect has not been publicly identified by police, multiple German news sources have named him as Taleb A., withholding his last name in accordance with privacy regulations, and reported that he was a specialist in psychiatry and psychotherapy.

Identifying himself as a former Muslim, the suspect seems to have been an active participant on the social media platform X, posting dozens of tweets and retweets daily that focused on anti-Islam sentiments, criticizing the faith and praising Muslims who exited the religion.

He also accused German authorities of insufficiently addressing what he termed the “Islamification of Europe.”

Magdeburg is rattled

The violence has left Germany and Magdeburg, the capital of the eastern state of Saxony-Anhalt, in shock, nearly bringing its mayor to tears and tarnishing the long-established German tradition of Christmas markets. Several other communities opted to cancel their weekend Christmas markets as a precaution and in solidarity with Magdeburg’s plight. Berlin maintained its many markets but amplified its police presence at them.

Germany has experienced a series of extremist assaults in recent years, including a knife attack that claimed three lives and wounded eight at a festival in the western city of Solingen in August.

Security personnel stand in front of a cordoned-off Christmas Market after a vehicle crashed into a crowd, in Magdeburg, Germany, early Saturday morning, Dec. 21, 2024.

Ebrahim Noroozi/AP

hide caption

toggle caption

Ebrahim Noroozi/AP

Friday’s incident transpired eight years after an Islamic extremist rammed a truck into a crowded Christmas market in Berlin, resulting in 13 deaths and numerous injuries. The perpetrator was killed days later during a confrontation in Italy.

Chancellor Scholz and Interior Minister Nancy Faeser visited Magdeburg, where a memorial service occurred on Saturday. Faeser commissioned flags to be lowered to half-mast at federal facilities nationwide.

While many attendees lit candles at the site to commemorate the victims, several hundred far-right demonstrators assembled in a central square in Magdeburg, holding a banner that said “remigration,” as reported by the German news agency dpa.

A witness recounts the terrifying incident

Confirmed bystander footage distributed by dpa showed the suspect’s apprehension at a tram stop in the center of the street. A nearby police officer aiming a handgun at the individual shouted at him as he lay flat on the ground, his head raised slightly. Other law enforcement officials surrounded the suspect and detained him.

Thi Linh Chi Nguyen, a 34-year-old nail technician from Vietnam whose salon is situated in a shopping mall opposite the Christmas market, was on the phone during a break when she heard loud bangs that she initially assumed were fireworks. She then witnessed a car racing through the market at high speed. People were screaming, and a child was thrown through the air by the vehicle.

Trembling while recounting the horror she had witnessed, she recalled seeing the car burst out of the market and veer right onto Ernst-Reuter-Allee street and then stop at the tram stop where the suspect was apprehended.

The sheer number of injured was staggering.

“My husband and I assisted them for two hours. He raced back home and retrieved as many blankets as he could find because there were insufficient covers for the injured individuals. And it was terribly cold,” she shared.

The market remained cordoned off on Saturday with red and white tape and police vans, while armed officers maintained a presence at every entry point. Some thermal security blankets were still scattered across the street.