By Isabel Pancake
It was the worst turn of the year that the emergency services in Berlin have ever experienced. More and more details about the New Year’s Eve riot are now becoming known.
At the request of MP Roland Gläser (49, AfD), the Interior Senate gave a precise breakdown of the attacks on the 49 police officers and 15 firefighters. Most of the injuries were caused by fire from pyrotechnics. Eight police officers were injured, eleven firefighters. The consequences: earache, tinnitus, bang trauma.
A particularly large number of officials (13) were injured on Unter den Linden in Mitte (13). This is followed by Brunnenstrasse in Mitte (4), Skalitzer Strasse/Wrangelstrasse in Kreuzberg (4) and Neuköllner Sonnenallee (3).
► Another target of the aggressive New Year’s Eve mob: the emergency vehicles. A total of 26 vehicles from the Berlin police and ten from the Berlin fire brigade were damaged during the night.
The murder weapons: firecrackers, bottles, stones and even beer crates and e-scooters. The fire brigade alone has a cost of 26,387.56 euros!
The response of the Interior Senate to a request from the Greens also shows that the most emergency calls to the Berlin fire brigade were made between midnight and 1 a.m. on New Year’s Eve: 1672! That’s 1,480 more than the year before.
► There are now 71 criminal charges in connection with attacks on the emergency services. “In 42 cases, at least one suspect is being investigated,” according to the Interior Senate.
Of these, 28 are Germans, four Afghans, three Iraqis, two Nigerians and one each from Iran, Syria, Turkey and Australia. The nationality of one of the suspects has not yet been clarified.