Knife attack at German festival leaves three dead, police searching for attacker

SOLINGEN (AP) – An attacker with a knife killed three people and seriously injured at least five at a festival in western Germany late Friday. German City of Solingen, the authorities said.

Shortly after 9:30 p.m., witnesses alerted the police that an unknown attacker had randomly injured several people with a knife at the Fronhof. The police said the perpetrator was on the run and that they had little information about the man so far.

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 say anything about the motive at this time,” and it is also unclear who the perpetrator was. However, the attacker left the crime scene “relatively quickly.”

Mayor Tim Kurzbach said in a Facebook post: “This evening we are all in shock in Solingen. We wanted to celebrate our city's birthday together and now we have deaths and injuries to mourn.”

“It breaks my heart that there has been an attack on our city,” he added.

The Solinger Tageblatt quoted Céline Derikartz, their reporter who covered the festival, as saying: “The atmosphere is eerie.” She said the party mood had turned into a state of shock within minutes and she had seen festival-goers crying.

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

The city canceled the rest of the festival after the attack. Solingen has about 160,000 inhabitants and is located near the major cities of Cologne and Düsseldorf.

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

In May, an Afghan immigrant stabbed members of a group that called itself opponents of “political Islam.” left a police officer dead.

Germany Chief Security Officer, Interior Minister Nancy Faeserproposed tightening firearms laws to allow the carrying of knives in public only with a blade length of up to 6 centimetres (almost 2.4 inches), instead of the currently permitted length of 12 centimetres (4.7 inches).

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Moulson reported from Berlin.