At least 2 killed as car drives into crowd in German city of Mannheim

Local police said a police operation was under way in the city centre, without giving further details.

Berlin: Two people were killed and several others injured when a man drove a car into a lunch-hour crowd in the southwestern German city of Mannheim on Monday, the authorities said.

The driver is a 40-year-old German citizen, the interior minister of Baden Württemberg state, Thomas Strobl, told the German news agency DPA.

Police arrested the man, who was not named publicly, soon after the event and said they believed he was the only person involved. Police did not say whether they believed the crash had been deliberate.

Other details about the driver, who was taken to a hospital, were not released. Police did not say how many people had been injured.

The authorities asked people to avoid the city center Monday.

Several recent ramming attacks had put Germans on edge before national elections last month.

Two weeks ago, a 24-year-old Afghan man who was seeking asylum intentionally drove into a union demonstration in Munich, killing a 2-year-old and her mother and wounding several dozen others.

And in December, a Saudi doctor who had been living in Germany for more than a decade was accused of driving his car into a Christmas market in the central city of Magdeburg, killing six people and injuring hundreds of others.

Those attacks, by immigrants or foreign-born residents, raised questions about domestic security and immigration policy before the elections, in which the hard-right Alternative for Germany party had its best showing ever.

There have also been a number of vehicle attacks in the past years by German-born perpetrators. Five years ago, a man who had been living in his car drove into a crowd in Trier, killing four. In 2018, a man with a history of psychological problems plowed his van into a crowd in Münster, in the country’s west, killing two.

In Mannheim, the driver reportedly entered a pedestrian-only stretch of the city center from its landmark water tower and drove roughly 700 yards toward the square known as Paradeplatz. The incident occurred at about 12:15 pm, according to police, when lunchtime crowds were enjoying unseasonably warm weather.

Detached pieces of the car could be seen along the vehicle’s path, video images showed.

A day earlier, a parade with 70 floats and 2,500 participants passed through the same zone in an annual carnival celebration. Police said about 250,000 people had attended.

Mannheim, which has a population of about 320,000, was in the headlines last year when an Afghan citizen living in Germany stabbed people at a far-right demonstration, killing a police officer who had rushed in to stop the attack.

After the events Monday, the nearby city of Heidelberg canceled carnival celebrations scheduled for Tuesday.

“This is the second time within a year that our neighboring city has suffered such a terrible act of violence — in a situation like this, it was inconceivable for us to celebrate a happy carnival parade here in Heidelberg,” Mayor Eckart Würzner said.