At least 28 people have been injured after a 24-year-old Afghan asylum seeker drove a car into a crowd of people in the German city of Munich, Germany, on February 13, police have said.
Officers said they were treating the incident as a suspected attack and the suspect, who has been arrested, was known to police for theft and drug offences.
Munich police said the car, a Mini Cooper, accelerated and ploughed into the back of a rally by the Verdi trade union at about 10:30 local time during a strike by public sector workers.
Employees of day-care centers, hospitals, sanitation facilities and public swimming pools had joined the strike, calling for higher pay and longer holidays.
More than 1,000 people were reportedly at the scene.
A major response operation was launched in the Dachauer Strasse area and one shot was fired at the vehicle by police before the driver was detained at the scene.
It is unclear whether the suspect was injured.
Photo by Chuck Henjes
A police spokesman told local broadcaster BR that police are checking whether there was a link between the demonstration and the incident.
The crash happened hours before VP JD Vance and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenski were due to arrive in the city for the Munich Security Conference – but police say they don’t believe it’s related.
Munich’s mayor Dieter Reiter said children were among those injured.
According to local outlet BR24, injured people are being treated at multiple hospitals around Munich, including a children’s hospital and the Munich Red Cross Clinic.
Some of the injured include employees of the Munich city administration, Munich’s deputy mayor Dominik Krause told the outlet.
Several participants at the trade union rally had brought their children with them, “which makes the act even more heinous”, Krause said.
The suspect is a 24-year-old asylum seeker from Afghanistan, German police said, adding that his motive was unclear.
Bavarian interior minister Joachim Herrmann said the suspect had been known to police for drug and shoplifting offences.
According to the the German Press Agency, the suspect came to Germany in 2016 as a minor but had his asylum application rejected in 2017 and has been required to leave the country since autumn 2020.
