German authorities have apprehended a 15-year-old male, as they undertake an investigation to establish any link with a fatal knife assault that took place on Friday in Solingen, a city in western Germany. Three individuals lost their lives and another eight suffered injuries due to the attack. According to Prosecutor Markus Caspers, the police are considering a terroristic motive, given that no other clear motive has been identified and the assailant seems unfamiliar to his victims.
The chief police officer has dispelled suggestions, which were prompted by social media speculation, that others may have been involved in the offense, stating that have no reason to support such claims. The public has been asked to provide further details if they have any, and cautioned against speculation and information spread via social media channels.
While multiple knives have been found at the scene of the incident, it is yet to be determined if any of these were indeed used in the attack. Reports did come in earlier via German news outlets stating that a weapon was recovered inside a rubbish container in downtown Solingen.
The fatalities from the attack include two men, reported to be 67 and 56-years-old respectively, and a 56-year-old woman. The assault took place around 9:40PM on Friday night, with the assailant wounding multiple individuals with a knife. The motive behind this attack still remains unknown.
“The culprits need to be swiftly apprehended and penalised to the full extent permissible by law,” said German Chancellor Olaf Scholz on platform X. Prior, Germany’s interior affairs minister, Nancy Faeser, emphasised that security forces are doing their utmost to arrest the offending individuals and to unravel the sequence of events leading up to the attack. This unfortunate incident happened at Fronhof, a market square in Solingen where live bands were performing, coinciding with a festival celebrating the city’s 650th anniversary. Solingen, a city in the North Rhine-Westphalia state on the border with the Netherlands, was in shock over the attack.
Police have sealed off the square on Saturday, and mourners have been leaving candles and flowers beyond the cordoned off zone. “Our hearts are heavy with shock and sorrow”, stated Solingen’s mayor, Tim-Oliver Kurzbach, during his meet with the press on Saturday morning.
A German artist, known as Topic, reported on Instagram that he was performing on a nearby platform during a local incident. Being told to carry on to prevent large-scale panic, he continued but was eventually asked to halt. In light of the assailant still being at large, they sought shelter in a close by shop while police choppers flew overhead, according to his social media update. Consequently, the rest of the weekend festival was called off by the authorities.
Aiming at victims’ necks was the attacker’s signature approach, as stated in an initial police briefing. However, a follow-up meeting did not verify this information, and deferred to an upcoming press conference instead. While fatal stabbings and gun violence are not the norm in Germany, the government recently expressed interest in tightening restrictions on public carrying of knives, by reducing their permissible size.
Referring to a history of violent incidents, a police officer was killed in June in Mannheim due to a knife attack during a right-wing demonstration and several people were injured in a train stabbing incident in 2021.
Herbert Reul, the Interior Minister for North Rhine-Westphalia, personally visited the crime scene early Saturday. Although reluctant to comment on possible motives, he confirmed it as a deliberate assault on human life.
Solingen, a city recognised for its knife production industry, has a population of around 165,000. – Reuters