Germany: Van plows into crowd causing several deaths

Monitoring Desk

BERLIN: At least three people died after a van drove into a crowd in the western German city of Munster, interior ministry confirmed on Saturday.

A spokesman from the ministry told German press agency DPA that three people sitting outside a restaurant were killed in the incident, and the suspect was found dead within the car.

Police said nearly 30 people were injured in the incident in the town’s historic center.

Munster’s Mayor Markus Lewe told reporters at the scene that the police was still investigating the background of the crash.

“For the time being, we still do not know the motive,” he said.

The vehicle ploughed into people sitting at tables outside the Grosser Kiepenkerl restaurant, which is popular with tourists.

The police spokeswoman said: “The danger is over.”

“I am shocked by the news from Muenster,” said Andrea Nahles, parliamentary leader of the Social Democrats, junior partner in Chancellor Angela Merkel’s ruling coalition.

“My thoughts are with the victims and their relatives,” she added. “I hope that our authorities can quickly clarify the background to this incident and wish the local forces much strength for their work.”

Images broadcast by German television showed several police and firefighting vehicles clustered around a street in the centre of the picturesque medieval city of 300,000 people.

It showed pictures of where police had cordoned off an area of the city.

The incident came one year to the day after a truck attack in Stockholm that killed five people, and also evoked memories of a December 2016 truck attack in Berlin that killed 12 people.

Anis Amri, a failed Tunis-ian asylum seeker with Isl-amist links, hijacked a truck on Dec. 19, 2016, killed the driver and then ploughed it into a crowded marketplace, killing 11 more people and injuring dozens of others.