Three people were killed and four others seriously injured in a knife attack at a town festival in Solingen, western Germany, on Tuesday evening. A man armed with a knife attacked the crowd and, despite being wounded by police, managed to escape. The incident took place during the “Festival of Diversity”, a celebration of the 650th anniversary of the city, located in North Rhine-Westphalia. The attack was announced by organizers on stage, causing shock among the previously unaware audience. A large-scale police operation is currently underway to track down the alleged perpetrator, a Dusseldorf police spokesman told AFP. Alexander Kresta, a spokesman for Wuppertal police, told the Bild tabloid that “the attacker stabbed people at random with a knife”. The perpetrator is suspected to be of Arab origin, and a terrorist motive has not been ruled out. Following the attack, the area was “largely cordoned off” and the festival, which was scheduled to continue until Sunday, was called off. Around 75,000 people were expected to attend the event. “This evening we are all in shock, shocked by the horror and deep sadness in Solingen. We wanted to celebrate the anniversary of our city together, and now we are left to mourn the dead and injured,” Mayor Tim-Oliver Kurzbach wrote on the city’s website. Solingen, a city of more than 150,000, is located near Düsseldorf and north of Cologne. “My heart is broken that an attack has taken place in our city. I have tears in my eyes thinking of those we have lost. My prayers go out to all those who are still fighting for their lives,” Kurzbach added.
According to the local newspaper Solinger Tageblatt, around 10 p.m., a member of the organization went on stage to interrupt the event that had started in the evening with a light show and concerts in a city square. The organizer informed the audience that rescue workers were trying to save the lives of several people. The thousands of people in attendance followed the call to leave calmly, the paper reported. “The atmosphere is surreal,” said the journalist who covered the story. “People left the square in shock, but with composure,” Philipp Muller, one of the organizers, told the paper. A witness also told the Solinger Tageblatt that he was a few meters from the attack, near the concert stage, “and could tell from the singer’s expression that something was wrong.” “Then, a meter away from me, a person fell,” he said, explaining that he initially thought it was someone under the influence of alcohol.
In recent years, German authorities have had to deal with the dual threat of terrorism, both jihadist and right-wing extremism. The deadliest jihadist attack on German soil dates back to December 2016: a truck used as a battering ram killed 12 people at a Christmas market in central Berlin, in an attack claimed by the Islamic State group. At the end of May, a knife attack in Mannheim during an anti-Islamic demonstration was carried out by a 25-year-old Afghan who had arrived in Germany in 2014. The incident left one police officer dead and five others injured.
