A car plowed into a busy outdoor Christmas market in the eastern German city of Magdeburg. killing at least two people and injuring dozens.
A driver rammed a crowd of merrymakers at a Christmas market in a city in central Germany on Friday evening, leaving at least two people dead and 60 people injured, local officials said.
The Christmas market is located the city of Magdeburg, the capital of Saxony-Anhalt, where people had gathered to celebrate the Christmas holidays. One of the dead was a young child, said Reiner Haseloff, premier of Saxony-Anhalt.
"It's a terrible tragedy. It is a catastrophe for the city of Magdeburg, for the state and for Germany in general," Haseloff said.
The news comes just a month after German interior minister Nancy Faeser advised people to be vigilant at Christmas markets.
Who was the driver?
Police have taken the suspected attacker into custody. Haseloff described him as a doctor from Saudi Arabia who was acting alone.
A video posted on social media shows a car speeding through a crowd caught between two rows of market stalls. People can be seen knocked to the ground and running away.
Where is Magdeburg, Germany?
Magdeburg is a city of around 200,000 in central Germany. It is the capital of the state of Saxony-Anhalt and is located around 100 miles west of Berlin.
Has this happened before?
The tragedy in Magdeburg isn't the first time a driver has plowed through a Christmas market in Germany.
In Berlin in 2016, Anis Amri, a failed Tunisian asylum seeker with Islamist links, plowed a truck through a crowded market, killing 12 people and injuring nearly 60 people. Among those killed was a truck driver from whom Amri stole the vehicle, according to German broadcaster DW.
A Tunisian man living in France carried out a similar attack on revelers celebrating Bastille Day in Nice in 2016.
Mohamed Lahouaiej-Bouhlel drove a truck through a crowd, killing at least 84 people and injuring hundreds in a 15-minute attack, according to Reuters.
It's unclear what vehicle the driver in Magdeburg used.