A car plowed through a park during Berlin’s biggest L.G.B.T.Q. Pride event late Saturday local time, killing at least one person and injuring 29 others, the authorities said. After an intense 18-hour manhunt, the man whom police called the prime suspect died in a police raid after he charged at officers with a weapon.
Here’s what to know.
What happened in the attack?
The violence occurred in the Tiergarten, a large central park in Berlin where large crowds had gathered to celebrate the annual L.G.B.T.Q. Pride festival, also known as Christopher Street Day, that is among the biggest such events in Europe.
Hundreds of thousands of people were in Berlin celebrating the festival, and many had gathered in the park, dancing to music and watching the parade. Around 10 p.m., a white minivan sped down a side street leading out of the park. The vehicle was eventually found abandoned where it had crashed into a tree. Officials said Sunday the attacker had also wielded what appeared to be a machete.
Who are the victims?
One woman was killed and 29 others were injured, many of them critically, the police said. Some victims suffered stab wounds, the police added.
Who was the suspect?
The police identified the suspect only as Abdul B., in keeping with German privacy laws, and said that he was already known to law enforcement and active in local Islamist groups.
The man, a 21-year-old German citizen whose family members migrated from Lebanon, had been the subject of a protracted nationwide manhunt since the Saturday evening attack. The suspect used a rented van and what appeared to be a machete in the attack, which German officials called an act of Islamist terrorism.
In a brief statement, the police said they had tracked the suspect to an area in a western corner of the city where residents maintain large garden patches. After officers shot him, emergency responders tried to revive him, but he died at the scene, the police said.
The authorities said their investigation into the attack was continuing.
What have German officials said?
The attack put an abrupt end to Christopher Street Day, a raucous festival that earlier Saturday had been the scene of dancing, celebrations and music. Officials canceled the rest of the program, which had been scheduled to continue on Sunday.
“This is an attack on our society,” Friedrich Merz, the German chancellor, wrote on the social media platform X. “The crime will be investigated and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law,” he added.
Kai Wegner, Berlin’s mayor, said in a news release that “after a peaceful and vibrant Christopher Street Day, the gathering for a tolerant and peaceful Berlin was brutally attacked. Berlin is the city of freedom — and our freedom has been horribly attacked today.”
Almost immediately, the attack reignited a debate in Germany about migration, religious extremism and public safety. It came months before Berlin and two other eastern states are set to hold closely watched regional elections, where polls already have suggested far-right parties are poised to make gains, partly on the basis of Germans’ anxieties over public violence.
