Four women, nine-year-old boy killed in Christmas market attack in Germany

A policeman stands next to a makeshift memorial at the site of a car-ramming attack on a Christmas market in Magdeburg, eastern Germany, on Sunday. Pic/AFP

Four women and a nine-year-old boy were killed when a man drove a car at high speed through a Christmas market in Germany. Meanwhile, mourners continued to lay flowers and other tributes at the site of the incident, news agency AP reported.

The police in Magdeburg, the central city where the attack took place on Friday evening, stated that the women victims were aged between 45 and 75. Authorities also said that 200 people were injured in the attack. This includes 41 people, whose condition is reported to be serious. The injured are undergoing treatment in several hospitals in Magdeburg, located about 130 kilometres from Berlin, and in surrounding areas, AP reported.

The suspect in the Christmas market attack in Germany has been identified as a Saudi doctor who arrived in the country in 2006 and had been granted permanent residency. On Saturday evening, he was brought before a judge, who ordered him to be kept in custody pending a possible indictment.

While police have not publicly named the suspect, several German news outlets identified him as Taleb A, withholding his last name in accordance with privacy laws.

He was reported to be a specialist in psychiatry and psychotherapy. Describing himself as a former Muslim, the suspect appeared to have been an active user of the social media platform X, where he frequently shared tweets and retweets focusing on anti-Islam themes, criticising the religion and congratulating Muslims who had renounced their faith. He also accused German authorities of failing to address what he referred to as the "Islamification of Europe."

The Christmas market attack in Germany, which has sparked horror in the country, is likely to keep migration at the forefront of political debate ahead of an early election on February 23. The far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party had already been polling strongly, fuelled by a societal backlash against the large numbers of refugees and migrants who have arrived in Germany over the past decade.

Right-wing leaders across Europe have criticised German authorities for permitting high levels of migration in recent years and for what they perceive as security failures. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, a vocal critic of migration, used the attack in Germany to attack the European Union's migration policies.

(With AP inputs)