Other MoA event in North Rhine-Westphalia, Solingen area, Germany on Fri 23rd August 2024

Police in Germany are searching for an unidentified suspect behind a mass stabbing at a festival in the western city of Solingen in which three people were killed.

Eight people were injured, five of them seriously, police said on Saturday as thousands had gathered at a central square for celebrations to mark Solingen’s 650th anniversary. The slain victims included one woman and two men.

“Both victims and witnesses were currently being questioned,” police in the nearby city of Dusseldorf said in a statement early on Saturday, adding that “a large contingent” of officers was searching for the perpetrator.

Police also set up an online portal where witnesses could upload footage and any other information relevant to the attack.

Later on Saturday, police said a 15-year-old boy was detained in connection to the stabbing, but he was not the attacker.

Markus Caspers, an official from the counterterrorism section of the public prosecutors office, told a news conference on Saturday that authorities have not found the perpetrator.

“So far we have not been able to identify a motive, but looking at the overall circumstances, we cannot rule out” the possibility of terrorism, Caspers said, without providing further details.

At about 9:40pm (19:40 GMT) on Friday, an unidentified man attacked multiple people with a knife, police said.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said the perpetrator must be caught quickly and punished to the fullest extent of the law.

The attack occurred at the Festival of Diversity in Solingen, which is located in North Rhine-Westphalia state, bordering the Netherlands.

The events were supposed to run through Sunday, with several stages in central streets offering attractions such as live music, cabaret and acrobatics. Solingen has about 160,000 residents and is located near the larger cities of Cologne and Dusseldorf.

Interior Minister Nancy Faeser said “the brutal attack on the city festival in Solingen deeply shocked us”.

“Our security authorities are doing everything they can to catch the perpetrator” of the “horrific act”, she said on Saturday in a statement on social media platform X.

Police on Saturday warned residents who observe anything suspicious not to act on their own initiative but to call the police emergency number.

“We currently have no clues as to his whereabouts,” said a police spokesman. There was also no description of the suspect, Germany’s dpa news agency reported.

Fatal stabbings and shootings in Germany are relatively uncommon. A police officer was killed and five people were wounded in a knife attack at a far-right rally in the city of Mannheim in May.

Faeser recently proposed toughening weapons laws to allow only knives with a blade measuring up to 6cm (2.4 inches) to be carried in public, rather than the currently allowed length of 12cm (4.7 inches).

Witness Lars Breitzke told the local Solinger Tageblatt newspaper he was a few metres from the attack, not far from the festival stage, and “understood from the expression on the singer’s face that something was wrong”.

“And then, a metre away from me, a person fell,” said Breitzke, who at first thought it was someone who had too much to drink.

When he turned around, he saw other people lying on the ground amid pools of blood.

German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier said in a statement: “Let’s stand together – against hatred and violence.”

The German Football League (DFL) asked its players to wear black armbands during their matches on Saturday, dpa reported. There are six Bundesliga matches and four second division games scheduled. Two of the games – one in Dortmund and another in Cologne – are within 60km (37 miles) of Solingen.