Solingen: At least three people were killed and five people were seriously injured after an unknown man attacked people with a knife at a festival in the western German city of Solingen, AP reported quoting local authorities.
Witnesses alerted the police shortly after 9:30 pm saying that an unknown perpetrator wounded several people indiscriminately with a knife on a central square. According to the witnesses, the stabbings were carried out by one man only.
Following the incident, Herbert Reul, the interior minister of North Rhine-Westphalia instructed police to investigate the matter. He further said that the cause behind the incident is yet to be identified.
“None of us knows why” the attack took place, said Reul.
He added, “I can’t say anything about the motive now” and it isn’t clear who the assailant was. He also informed that the attacker had left the scene “relatively quickly.”
Meanwhile, one of the festival organizers, Philipp Müller appeared on the stage shortly after the incident took place and asked the attendees to “go calmly.”
As per reports, the man hasn’t been caught yet.
The “Festival of Diversity,” marking the city’s 650th anniversary, began on Friday and was supposed to run through Sunday, with several stages in central streets offering attractions such as live music, cabaret and acrobatics.
The city cancelled the rest of the festival after the attack. Solingen has about 160,000 residents and is located near the bigger cities of Cologne and Duesseldorf.
There has been concern about an increase in knife violence in Germany recently.
In May, a knife attack by an Afghan immigrant on members of a group that describes itself as opposing “political Islam” left a police officer dead.
Germany’s top security official, Interior Minister Nancy Faeser, this month proposed toughening weapons laws to allow only knives with a blade measuring up to 6 centimeters (nearly 2.4 inches) to be carried in public, rather than the length of 12 centimeters (4.7 inches) which is allowed now.
(Inputs from AP)
Germany Mass Stabbing: 3 Killed, 5 Severely Injured at ‘Diversity Festival’ as Police Hunt Suspect world-news World News | Latest International News | Global World News | World News Today
