New Delhi:
Seven Indians were injured in the attack on the Christmas market in Germany, sources said today. Three of them have been discharged from hospital, they said, adding that the Indian embassy is in touch with all injured Indians.
The Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) said in a statement that India condemned the “heinous and senseless attack on the Christmas market in Magdeburg, Germany”.
“Several precious lives have been lost and many have been injured. Our thoughts and prayers are with the victims. Our mission is in touch with the injured Indians and their families and is providing all possible assistance,” the MEA said.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz condemned the “terrible, insane” attack that killed five people and shocked the nation, days before Christmas and eight years after a jihadist drove a truck into a Christmas market in Berlin.
The suspect, a Saudi, in the deadly car ram attack had strong anti-Islam views and was angry with Germany’s migrant policy, the AFP news agency reported on Saturday.
The suspect, Taleb al-Abdulmohsen, drove an SUV at high speed through a dense crowd on Friday, also injuring 205 people in the eastern city of Magdeburg. The massive massacre caused grief and disgust, with a nine-year-old child among the dead and victims being treated in fifteen regional hospitals.
A self-described “Saudi atheist” who, as an activist helping women flee the oil-rich kingdom, railed against Islam, but also against what he saw as Germany’s tolerant attitude toward refugees from other, mainly Muslim countries.
Home Secretary Nancy Fraser said he held “Islamophobic” views, and a prosecutor said “the background to the crime… could be dissatisfaction with the way Saudi Arabian refugees are being treated in Germany.”
Taha Al-Hajji of the Berlin-based European Saudi Organization for Human Rights told AFP Abdulmohsen was “a psychologically disturbed person with an exaggerated sense of self-importance”.
Surveillance video footage of the attack showed a black BMW racing through the crowd, scattering bodies among festive stalls selling traditional handicrafts, snacks and mulled wine.
On Saturday, debris and discarded medical equipment blew across the cordoned off site, where stalls now stand empty around a giant Christmas tree. The event was canceled for the year out of respect for the victims.
The leader of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), Alice Weidel, who has focused on jihadist attacks in her campaign against immigrants, wrote on X: “When will this madness stop?”
“What happened today affects a lot of people. It affects us a lot,” Fael Kelion, a 27-year-old Cameroonian living in the city, told AFP. “I think since (the suspect) is a foreigner, the population will be unhappy and less hospitable.”
With input from AFP