German police launch manhunt for knifeman who killed three at festival

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German authorities have described the knife attack in the western town of Solingen on Friday night that killed three people as a terrorist act, as police continued to hunt for the perpetrator.

Hendrik Wüst, prime minister of the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, where Solingen is located, said the attack had struck his region in the heart and was an “act of terror that was designed to shatter our way of life”.

Police said the incident occurred at around 9.40pm on Friday when an unknown assailant attacked several people with a knife during a festival in Solingen town centre, killing three and injuring eight, five of them seriously.

The perpetrator fled the scene, triggering a massive manhunt. Road junctions in the town of 150,000 were sealed off and residents told to avoid the town centre, according to local media reports.

Interior minister Nancy Faeser, speaking alongside Wüst, said society must stand together in the face of such incidents. “At such times we won’t allow ourselves to be divided,” she said.

Police said on Saturday they had detained a man and were investigating him for possible links to the incident. They later said he was not the perpetrator; police suspect him of having prior knowledge of the attack but failing to alert the authorities.

Chancellor Olaf Scholz said he had been “shocked to the core” by the attack. “An assailant brutally killed several people,” he wrote on X. “We grieve for the victims and stand with their families . . . The perpetrator must be apprehended and punished with the full force of the law.”

Herbert Reul, the region’s interior minister, arrived at the scene late on Friday night and told reporters: “You just can’t take in what you’re seeing here at the scene — it’s just depressing.”

He said his thoughts were with the families of the victims and those who had been hurt in the attack.

Solingen’s mayor Tim Kurzbach on Facebook: “This evening we in Solingen are all in shock. Horror and great sadness.”

“Hopefully the emergency services will succeed in saving the lives of the wounded and catching the cowardly and pathetic perpetrator, who is still on the run,” federal health minister Karl Lauterbach wrote on X.

Solingen was holding a weekend “Festival of Diversity” to mark its 650th birthday when the attacker struck. Some 80,000 people were expected to attend the three-day event, which featured concerts, comedy, acrobatics and entertainment for children.

The attack took place in front of a stage where bands were playing. The festival was immediately called off and police asked visitors to provide them with photos and films of the event.

The incident comes at a time of rising concern about knife crime in Germany. Faeser recently proposed tougher rules on the possession of knives, reducing the maximum length of blades that can be carried in public.

In June a police officer died after succumbing to wounds sustained during a knife attack by an Afghan national on a rightwing demonstration in the south-western city of Mannheim.

Later that month, a 27-year-old Afghan man in the east German town of Wolmirstedt was shot dead by police after he stabbed a man to death and then injured several others at a private garden party during the Euros football tournament.