A minimum of 28 individuals were injured when a car drove into a crowd in Munich on Thursday, authorities said, as the southern German city prepares for a high-level security conference due to be attended by United States Vice President JD Vance and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.Police stated on social platform X that the chauffeur was secured at the scene and no longer poses any danger.The suspect is believed to be a 24-year-old Afghan asylum-seeker, authorities said.It is presumed to be an attack a lot points to that, Bavarian governor Markus Sder informed reporters at the scene.The suspect need to be penalized to the full extent of the law and then expelled from Germany, Chancellor Olaf Scholz said on Thursday.
What has taken place is terrible, Scholz told reporters.
From my perspective it is rather clear, this aggressor can not count on any mercy, he needs to be punished and he needs to leave the nation.
A passer-by said he experienced the event from a window of a neighbouring office complex.
The vehicle, a Mini Cooper, had actually threaded its way in between the squad car and after that sped up, he said.Another witness said she had seen part of the occurrence from a building.
The cars and truck had actually sped up and hit a number of people in the crowd, she said.Regional public broadcaster Bayerischer Rundfunk (BR) reported that the people who were hurt were apparently participating in a strike.
One individual is resting on the street and a boy has actually been eliminated by the police.
People are sitting on the ground, crying and shivering, a reporter for BR wrote in a post on X.A massive cops operation was underway near the southern citys main train station.The Munich Security Conference is to start on Friday and Vance and Zelensky are showing up in the future Thursday.The occurrence happened around 1.5 kilometres (1 mile) from the security conference venue.Security has remained in sharp focus in Germany ahead of a federal election next week and following a string of violent attacks.The event follows a series of attacks including immigrants in recent months that have actually pushed migration to the forefront on the project trail ahead of Germanys February 23 election.
Most recently, a two-year-old kid and another individual were killed in a knife attack in Aschaffenburg, likewise in Bavaria.