Three people die and at least five are injured in an attack on a German festival

An attacker killed three people and seriously injured at least five with a knife at a folk festival in the western German city of Solingen late Friday, authorities said.

Shortly after 9:30 p.m. local time, witnesses alerted the police to an unknown perpetrator who had randomly injured several people with a knife in a central square. The police said that no one had been arrested and that there was little information about the man.

They assumed that the stabbings were committed by a lone perpetrator.

One of the festival organizers, Philipp Müller, appeared on stage and asked the festival-goers to “stay calm and please keep your eyes open, because unfortunately the perpetrator has not yet been caught.”

He said many people were injured by “a knife attacker.”

At least one helicopter was seen in the air, while numerous police and emergency vehicles were on the road with blue lights flashing and several roads were closed.

The police put the number of seriously injured at five. Herbert Reul, the region's top security officer, spoke of six injured when he was on site in the early hours of Saturday morning.

“None of us knows why” the attack took place, said North Rhine-Westphalia's Interior Minister Reul.

“I cannot give any information about the motive at this time,” and it is also unclear who the perpetrator was. The attacker left the crime scene “relatively quickly,” he said.

The “Festival of Diversity” to mark the city's 650th anniversary began on Friday and was scheduled to run until Sunday. Several stages in central streets were scheduled to offer attractions such as live music, cabaret and acrobatics.

After the attack, the city canceled the rest of the festival. Solingen has around 160,000 inhabitants and is located near Cologne and Düsseldorf.

There has recently been concern in Germany about a rise in knife violence.

In May, a police officer was killed in a knife attack by an Afghan immigrant on members of a group that describes itself as opponents of “political Islam.”

Germany's top security official, Interior Minister Nancy Faeser, proposed this month a tightening of the gun law, allowing the public carrying of knives with a blade length of no more than six centimeters, instead of the currently permitted 12 centimeters.