As part of the investigation into the fatal knife attack at a street festival in Solingen, German police arrested one person on Saturday.
Police in the western city of Düsseldorf said they were investigating whether the person arrested was “linked to the crime” and were in the midst of a major manhunt for the man who stabbed three people and injured eight others in an attack that shocked the country.
After the attack on Friday evening at the “Festival of Diversity” in Solingen, the police cordoned off the city center. A police statement said that five of the injured were in “serious” condition.
According to an AFP journalist, special forces assisted security personnel in the city center while a helicopter flew overhead.
“Our security authorities are doing everything they can to catch the perpetrator of this ‘cruel act,'” said Interior Minister Nancy Faeser. Chancellor Olaf Scholz demanded that he be “quickly caught and punished.”
Thousands of people had gathered in front of a stage on the first evening of the “Festival of Diversity”, part of a series of events to mark Solingen’s 650th anniversary, when the killing began.
“An unidentified man attacked several people with a knife at around 9:40 p.m. (7:40 p.m. GMT),” police in the nearby city of Düsseldorf said in a statement.
“The police are currently conducting a large-scale search for the perpetrator,” it said. Witnesses are being asked to send the police photos, videos and further information about the attack.
“A person has fallen”
“Out of nowhere, a man armed with a knife randomly stabbed people and killed them,” said State Interior Minister Herbert Reul at the scene.
“Why? Nobody knows. We can’t say anything about the motive yet,” he added.
The witness Lars Breitzke told the “Solinger Tageblatt” that he was a few meters away from the scene of the attack, not far from the festival stage, and “recognized from the singer’s facial expression that something was wrong.”
“And then a person fell one meter away from me,” says Breitzke, who initially thought it was an alcoholic.
When he turned around, he saw other people lying on the ground surrounded by pools of blood.
Solingen’s mayor Tim-Oliver Kurzbach said in a statement that the entire city was in “shock, horror and great sadness”.
“We all wanted to celebrate our city’s birthday together and now we have to mourn the dead and injured,” he said.
“Brutal and senseless”
“It breaks my heart that our city was attacked. I have tears in my eyes when I think of those we lost. I pray for all those who are still fighting for their lives,” he said.
Hendrik Wüst, Prime Minister of North Rhine-Westphalia, also expressed his “shock and sadness” in a post on the social media platform X.
“An act of the most brutal and senseless violence has struck the heart of our state,” he said.
“The whole of North Rhine-Westphalia stands by the side of the people of Solingen, especially the victims and their families.”
Solingen is a city with around 150,000 inhabitants between Düsseldorf and Cologne.
People gathered in the city on Friday evening for the first day of the three-day “Festival of Diversity”.
Music, street theater, variety shows and comedians are planned in the city center and at several other locations, it was said.
Up to 75,000 visitors were expected.
Festival cancelled
According to the Solinger Tageblatt, one of the festival organizers came on stage to announce the cancellation of the festival.
Thousands of people had left the area, the newspaper reported. A journalist on site described the atmosphere as “ghostly.”
“People left the scene in shock but calm,” Philipp Müller, one of the organizers, told the newspaper.
Müller said the rest of the festival would also be cancelled.
There have been a number of knife attacks in Germany over the past twelve months. The government has announced that it will take tough measures against knife crime.
At a right-wing extremist rally in Mannheim in May, a police officer was killed and five people were injured in a knife attack.
(This article has not been edited by News18’s editorial team and is taken from the feed of a syndicated news agency – AFP.)
