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German authorities have launched a large manhunt after an unknown assailant stabbed three people to death at a festival in the western town of Solingen.
Police said the incident occurred at around 9.40pm on Friday when the man attacked several people with a knife.
“As things stand three people were killed in the attack and eight injured, 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 questioning victims and witnesses of the attack.
Heavily-armed special forces from across the region of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) had converged on Solingen, a town of about 150,000 north of Cologne, Bild-Zeitung reported. Road junctions were sealed off and residents told to stay in their houses and avoid the town centre.
Nancy Faeser, interior minister, said: “The brutal attack on the Solingen town festival has shocked us to the core. We grieve for the people who were killed in such a terrible way”.
She added that law enforcement agencies were “doing everything to catch the perpetrator and investigate the background of the attack”.
Herbert Reul, interior minister of NRW, arrived at the scene late on Friday night and told reporters: “You just can’t take in what you’re seeing here at the scene — it’s just depressing.”
He said his thoughts were with the families of the victims and those who had been hurt in the attack. “We can only pray that the critically injured make it.”
Solingen’s mayor Tim Kurzbach on Facebook: “This evening we in Solingen are all in shock. Horror and great sadness.”
“Hopefully the emergency services will succeed in saving the lives of the wounded and catching the cowardly and pathetic perpetrator, who is still on the run,” federal health minister Karl Lauterbach wrote on X.
Solingen was holding a weekend “Festival of Diversity” to mark its 650th birthday when the attacker struck. Some 80,000 people were expected to attend the three-day event, which featured concerts, comedy, acrobatics and entertainment for children.
The attack took place in front of a stage where bands were playing. The festival was immediately called off and police asked visitors to provide them with photos or films of the event.
The incident came at a time of rising concern about knife crime in Germany. Faeser recently proposed tougher rules on the possession of knives, reducing the maximum length of blades that can be carried in public.
In June a police officer died after succumbing to wounds sustained during a knife attack by an Afghan national on a rightwing demonstration in the south-western city of Mannheim.
Later that month, a 27-year-old Afghan man in the east German town of Wolmirstedt was shot dead by police after he stabbed a man to death and then injured several others at a private garden party during the Euros football tournament.
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