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Two dead after car drives into crowd in Germany

Jacqueline Howard & Laura Gozzi
BBC News
Reuters In focus, two police in white hazmat suits walk by a black car. In the foreground, obscuring the car and one policeman, is a police van and a uniformed officer who walks over the tramlineReuters

Two people have been killed and several others have been seriously injured after a vehicle drove into a pedestrian area in the city centre of Mannheim, western Germany.

Authorities said a "lone" suspect, a 40-year-old German man, has been arrested, and that no evidence pointed towards any further perpetrator.

Interior minister for the state, Thomas Strobl, said early information suggested that the suspect is from the neighbouring state of Rhineland-Palatinate.

Mannheim Police issued a request that people avoid the area, but said that there is currently no further danger to the public.

The incident occurred at around 12:15 local time (11:15 GMT), Mannheim Police said.

Images from the scene showed police investigating a car, a small black Ford, which had sustained heavy damage to its front.

Authorities said that the President of Baden-Württemberg, Winfried Kretschmann, is travelling to Mannheim to assess the situation.

The incident comes at a time of heightened security for Mannheim's annual carnival. There was a parade through the city centre on Sunday, with major events scheduled for Tuesday.

Police have not said whether there will be a change to the schedule in light of the incident.

Reuters Two policemen in white hazmat suits inspect a black car with a broken windshield and heavily dented hoodReuters

Police have not confirmed if the incident was a deliberate attack.

But, Germany has endured a number of violent attacks over the last year, which have left several people dead and hundreds injured.

Nine months ago, also in Mannheim and only a few blocks away from where Monday's attack is believed to have taken place, an Afghan man stabbed several people, killing a policeman.

Then, in August, another knife attack left eight people injured and three dead in Solingen. The Syrian man who was charged with the crime was suspected of links with the Islamic State terrorist group.

In December a man rammed a car into a crowd at a Christmas market in Magdeburg, leaving six dead and 299 injured. A 50-year-old Saudi psychiatrist was arrested.

In January, a 28-year-old Afghan asylum seeker attacked a group of small children in a park in the Bavarian town of Aschaffenburg, killing a two-year-old child and a passer-by who tried to help the boy.

And in February, a 24-year-old Afghan asylum seeker drove a car into a crowd, injuring more than two dozen people. A mother and child later died from their injuries.

Map showing Mannheim, where a ring road encases the city centre, and in the very centre of that, a red tag shows where the car hit pedestrians