MANNHEIM: A driver struck a crowd in southwest Germany on Monday, killing two people and seriously hurting several more, authorities said, adding that a 40-year-old German suspect was arrested at the scene.

Armed police shut down and evacuated the inner city of Mannheim after a car was driven through a pedestrian shopping area, with authorities saying they were working to determine the “perpetrator’s motivation”. Two car ramming attacks in other German cities since December have killed eight people, while Mannheim was the scene of a stabbing attack at an anti-Islam rally last May that killed a policeman and wounded five other people.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz condemned the incident as a “senseless act of violence”. “Once again we mourn with the relatives of the victims of a senseless act of violence and fear for the injured,” Scholz said in a post on X, adding: “We cannot accept this.”

Security was a major theme in last month’s general election, which was won by the centre-right CDU/CSU under Friedrich Merz. The incident “is a stark reminder to us: we must do everything we can to prevent such crimes... Germany must become a safe country again,” Merz wrote on X.

Scholz calls incident a ‘senseless act of violence’

The driver on Monday ploughed through a pedestrian area where a carnival market was located with dozens of food stalls, rides and games. “A car drove into a group of people in Mannheim’s city centre. Two people died and several others are seriously injured,” Baden-Wuerttemberg state’s Interior Minister Thomas Strobl said.

‘It’s heartbreaking’

Strobl added that the suspect arrested at the scene was a 40-year-old German man from the neighbouring state of Rhineland-Palatinate. “The police are working hard to clarify what happened, the background to the crime and the perpetrator’s motivation,” Strobl added.

“It’s heartbreaking,” cafe owner Kasim Timur, 57, was quoted as telling news site Der Spiegel, adding that one of his staff members had seen seriously injured people, among them children. “We only see wounded people and the dead person, and we don’t know what to do,” another shopkeeper was quoted as saying by the local daily MannheimerMorgen.

Police spokesman Stefan Wilhelm said residents had been urged “to avoid the inner city area” amid the major police operation. Officers with heavy weapons cordoned off the area and police helicopters were seen in the air.

TheBild daily said 25 people were injured in the incident, with pictures showing multiple ambulances in the area near the city’s landmark water tower.

A reporter at the scene for news channel NTV said that “at least one person is lying covered under a tarpaulin” and that children’s shoes were among the clothes and debris scattered on the ground. The intensive care unit of Mannheim’s university hospital declared a disaster alert, readying for a wave of casualties needing emergency treatment

German cities have seen several violent attacks in recent months, including stabbing sprees and car ramming attacks.

Published in Dawn, March 4th, 2025