Germany: Stabbing in Aschaffenburg leaves 2 dead

Two people were killed in a stabbing in the southern German city of Aschaffenburg on Wednesday, local police said.

A 41-year-old man and a 2-year-old boy died in the attack. Three others were seriously injured.

A 28-year-old suspect, who police say is from Afghanistan, has been taken into custody. Another person who witnessed the attack is also being held for questioning, but was not suspected of wrongdoing. 

German chancellor meets security chiefs

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said the attack was "an unbelievable act of terror" and offered his sympathies to the victims' families and those who were injured. 

"I am sick of seeing such acts of violence occurring in our country every few weeks, by perpetrators who have actually come here to find protection here," he said.

Scholz met with the heads of the Office for the Protection of the Constitution, the Federal Criminal Police Office, and the Federal Police at the Chancellery late in the evening.  Interior Minister Nancy Faeser also participated in the meeting.

"The authorities must work as hard as possible to find out why the attacker was still in Germany," Scholz said ahead of the meeting. 

"Things cannot go on like this," the conservative Christian Democratic Union's Friedrich Merz wrote on X, formerly Twitter, after the attack. "We must and will restore law and order!"

The far-right Alternative for Germany party's Alice Weidel also posted a message on X urging "remigration now!" — using a term that the far right has adopted to call for the mass deportation of migrants and which has sparked widespread anti-far-right protest.

What do we know about the attack?

The motives for the attack are still unclear, but police have launched an investigation. Bavarian authorities have thus far pointed to the suspect's apparent mental illness.

The stabbing occurred shortly before noon at the Schöntal park near Aschaffenburg's city center. Bavarian Interior Minister Joachim Herrmann said the suspect deliberately attacked a kindergarten group in the park with a kitchen knife.

The perpetrator attempted to run away from the crime scene across nearby railroad tracks, with German rail company Deutsche Bahn temporarily halting trains in the area.

Herrmann said the suspect had entered Germany in 2022. His asylum claim was unsuccessful and he was supposed to have left the country late last year.

The suspect had a history of violent behavior and was undergoing psychiatric treatment by the time his asylum case was denied.

The suspect's accommodation at an asylum center was searched. Investigators found psychiatric medication but no "evidence of a radical Islamist attitude."

Initial information regarding a motive pointed "very strongly in the direction of his obvious mental illness," Herrmann said.

Attack comes as Germany on security alert ahead of elections

Aschaffenburg lies in the northern part of the German state of Bavaria, and is less than an hour's drive or train ride from Frankfurt.      

Germany is on high alert after a car ramming attack at a Christmas market in the eastern city of Magdeburg last month left six people dead and almost 300 people injured.

Security in Germany's public spaces is a major topic of debate ahead of the snap German election on February 23.  

wd/sms (AFP, Reuters, dpa)