German police launch manhunt for knife attacker who killed three people at festival

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German authorities have launched a manhunt after an unknown attacker stabbed three people to death at a festival in the western city of Solingen.

According to police, the incident occurred on Friday around 9:40 p.m., when the man attacked several people with a knife.

“According to current information, three people were killed and eight injured in the attack, five of them seriously,” police said in a statement on Saturday.

The statement added that a large contingent of officers was searching for the perpetrator and interviewing victims and witnesses. Police later announced that they had arrested a man and were investigating him for possible connections to the incident.

Heavily armed special forces from across North Rhine-Westphalia have converged on Solingen, a city of around 150,000 inhabitants north of Cologne, the Bild newspaper reported. Road intersections were cordoned off and residents were asked to stay in their homes and avoid the city center.

Interior Minister Nancy Faeser said: “The brutal attack on the Solingen city festival has shocked us deeply. We mourn the people who were killed in such a cruel way.”

She added that law enforcement authorities are “doing everything possible to catch the perpetrator and investigate the background to the attack.”

Chancellor Olaf Scholz said on Saturday that he was “deeply shocked” by the attack. “An attacker has brutally killed several people,” he wrote on X. “We mourn with the victims and support their families … The perpetrator must be caught and punished to the fullest extent of the law.”

Herbert Reul, the country's interior minister, arrived at the scene late Friday evening and told reporters: “You just can't understand what you see here on the ground – it's just depressing.”

He said his thoughts were with the families of the victims and those injured in the attack.

Solingen's mayor Tim Kurzbach on Facebook: “This evening we are all in shock in Solingen. Horror and great sadness.”

“Hopefully the emergency services will succeed in saving the lives of the injured and in catching the cowardly and pathetic perpetrator, who is still on the run,” wrote Federal Health Minister Karl Lauterbach on X.

Solingen was holding a “festival of diversity” to mark its 650th birthday when the attacker struck. Around 80,000 people were expected to attend the three-day event with concerts, comedy, acrobatics and children's entertainment.

The attack occurred in front of a stage where bands were playing. The festival was immediately cancelled and the police asked visitors to provide them with photos and films of the event.

The incident came at a time of growing concern about knife crime in Germany. Faeser had recently proposed stricter regulations on knife ownership to reduce the maximum blade length that can be carried in public.

In June, a police officer died as a result of a knife attack by an Afghan citizen at a right-wing extremist demonstration in Mannheim.

Later that month, a 27-year-old Afghan man was shot dead by police in the eastern German town of Wolmirstedt after stabbing a man and wounding several others at a private garden party during the European Football Championship.