A car ran over several people on a shopping street in central Berlin on Wednesday.leaving one dead and more than a dozen injured before its driver was arrested, announced the police, who ignore the motivations of the incident.
The emergency services recorded “more than a dozen injured”, of which five “are fighting for their lives”, while another three people taken to hospital are “seriously injured”.
What is known about the driver?
The vehicle, a metallic gray Renault Clio, It ended up crashing around 10:30 a.m. m. (local time) against a shop window near the Berlin Zoo train station.
Right after, the driver of the car tried to escape but was intercepted by pedestrians and then detained by the police, explained Thilo Cablitz, a security forces official at the scene. He is a 29-year-old Armenian-German.
The incident took place near the Memorial Church, an emblematic monument in the western part of the German capital, located on one of the busiest commercial arteries, the Kurfürstendamm.
What’s behind the crash?
The Berlin police, who for the moment did not specify whether it was a deliberate act or an accidentreported on Twitter that there was a deceased person.
Some 130 police officers and numerous firefighters were deployed to the scene, not far from where on December 19, 2016, an Islamist terrorist ran over and killed 12 people with a truck during a Christmas market.
How was the crash?
The car first pounced on pedestrians “and kept going” for about 150 to 200 meters before crashing “into a shop window,” Cablitz said.
“I was near the source when I heard a loud noise, then I saw a person fly into the air (due to the impact of the vehicle),” a witness, Frank Vittchen, told AFP.
“He continued very fast down the sidewalk and did not brake. Then he went down to the road and fled,” he added.
Another witness, who did not want to reveal his identity, assured that the driver rammed “a group of students.” before going through a red light and continuing to drive at an “excessive speed”.
According to various media, the victim is a teacher who accompanied that group. A body covered with blue and white blankets could still be seen in the street hours after the tragedy, AFP journalists confirmed.
The crashed vehicle could also be seen in the window of a perfume store, with the passenger door open.
In recent years there have been several vehicle attacks in Germany at the hands of people with psychological problems.
One of the most serious occurred in April 2018 in Munster (west), when a man ran over five people gathered in front of a restaurant with a van. The driver committed suicide just after a shot to the head.
In December 2020, a 51-year-old driver suffering from bouts of psychosis killed five people (including a baby) and seriously injured 14 when he drunkenly entered a pedestrian zone in Trier (southwest) shortly before Christmas.
In Volksmarsen, in the Hesse region (west), a 30-year-old man injured a hundred people in February 2020 by throwing his vehicle into the carnival parade.
INTERNATIONAL WRITING
*With information from AFP
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