BERLIN: German police searched on Sunday for a 21-year-old believed linked to Islamist circles after a car ploughed into crowds near Berlin's Pride celebrations, killing one person and wounding 16 others.
Police and prosecutors appealed for information on a 21-year-old man identified as Abdul B., warning he may be armed and dangerous.
“The suspect is known to police. He is known to us as a member of Islamic circles here in Berlin, and our search for this person is proceeding at full speed,” said police spokesman Florian Nath.
Nath added that “we still have no information whatsoever regarding his specific motives, the exact sequence of events, or his role in the crime itself.”
Earlier, police said some of the victims had life-threatening injuries. In a post on X, police called on everyone to leave the site of the event immediately as ambulances and firefighters attended to the victims.
White van hit people in Tiergarten park
According to police, a white van had driven into the Tiergarten park around 10 p.m., which is next to the route that the pride march had passed along earlier, and hit several people before colliding with a tree. Police could not say how many officers had been deployed to the scene but that it was “definitely a lot of police.”
Overall, more than 2,200 police officers have been on duty in Berlin since Saturday morning to protect the pride parade and other LGBTQ+ events in the city.
Police were conducting witness interrogations at the park during the night and were investigating accounts that in addition to the crash some victims appeared to have suffered stab wounds — but that it was too early to draw any conclusion from those accounts.
Berlin Mayor Kai Wegner expressed shock, saying that “following a peaceful and vibrant pride parade, the rally for a tolerant and peaceful Berlin was attacked in the most brutal manner.”
“This is an attack on our free and cosmopolitan society,” Wegner said. “I have confidence in the police and security authorities, who will be working around the clock to investigate.”
Meanwhile, authorities called on possible witnesses to come forward and share with police any video or photos they might have taken at the scene of the attack.
The city also activated a crisis hotline for people missing friends or family members.
Iconic pride event called off
The pride event in front of the city’s Brandenburg Gate, near Tiergarten, was called off around 10:15 p.m. and a band’s performance on stage was interrupted. People were urged to go home and to avoid taking the route through the park.
Before the incident, people had celebrated peacefully, marching through the city for hours, dancing to loud music, and cheering the around 80 floats that participated in the parade.
Julian Miethig, who had attended the LGBTQ+ party at the Brandenburg Gate earlier, said he had just wanted to go to an afterparty when he heard from a friend that “something bad happened there and there are a lot of fire trucks, a lot of emergency vehicles, ambulances.”
He said he went to Tiergarten and was shocked that something like this could have happened at Berlin’s pride celebrations.
“It’s a dark day for the community,” he said.
Series of car attacks
Hundreds of thousands of people had come to Berlin on Saturday to celebrate at Berlin’s pride parade, known in Germany as Christopher Street Day. It’s one of Europe’s largest LGBTQ+ celebrations.
“It’s one of the worst days for the queer community and a day I personally hoped I’d never have to experience ... I’m shocked,” said Julian Methig, who attended the event.
Christopher Street Day draws hundreds of thousands of people to the German capital each year. The event commemorates the 1969 Stonewall uprising in New York and combines a parade with political demands for equality, inclusion and protection against discrimination.
First held in West Berlin in 1979, Christopher Street Day has grown from a small demonstration into a major fixture of the city’s cultural and political calendar. The parade is the centerpiece of the CSD, but it is accompanied by a wide range of political, cultural and party events held across the city.
Germany has in recent years suffered a series of apparent attacks in which a car has charged into a crowd, causing deaths. In May, a man believed to have mental health issues drove his car into a central pedestrian zone of the eastern German city of Leipzig, killing two people and seriously injuring three.
Last year, two people were killed in the western city of Mannheim when a 40-year-old man whom authorities described as psychologically unwell drove a car into a group of pedestrians. Weeks before that, an Afghan national carried out a similar attack on a trade union demonstration in Munich, killing two and injuring more than 40, including many children.
In December 2024, several people were killed in a car-ramming attack on a Christmas market in the eastern city of Magdeburg. The suspected perpetrator was a psychiatrist from Saudi Arabia with a history of anti-Islamic rhetoric who had lived in Germany for almost two decades.
