UPDATE
Two people were killed and at least twenty others injured in a car incident in the center of the German city of Leipzig on Monday afternoon. The police and the mayor confirm this. According to local broadcaster ‘Radio Leipzig’, a Volkswagen drove through a pedestrian zone at high speed with a person on top of the vehicle. The suspect, a 33-year-old German, has now been arrested. This article is continuously updated.
Luka Geets
Journalist at HLN
Source: ANP, Reuters, Belga, local media
Two people were killed and two seriously injured when a car plowed into a crowd in the center of the eastern German city of Leipzig on Monday, local broadcaster MDR reported, citing police sources. More than 20 people were injured, fire chief Axel Schuh said. They were taken to hospital.
Local broadcaster ‘Radio Leipzig’ reported that a damaged Volkswagen SUV with a person on top of the vehicle drove at high speed through a shopping street. The broadcaster quoted eyewitnesses as saying that there were several bodies under sheets and that there had been a stabbing.
Suspect arrested
The suspect has been arrested and there is no longer a danger to the public. Mayor Burkhard Jung (SPD) announced this to the German newspaper ‘Bild’. “We are deeply saddened. All I can do now is express my condolences to the families of the victims,” Jung said.
The driver had previously fled the scene of the incident, but was caught. According to ‘Bild’, he showed “signs of psychological instability” during his arrest.
The emergency services are present en masse in the city center. There are about ten ambulances at the scene of the incident. The shops in the pedestrian zone are closed.
The exact circumstances of the incident have not yet been released. It is therefore not clear whether the driver did this on purpose or whether it was an accident.
Germany has been shocked in recent years by several attacks in which a vehicle was used as a ram. For example, there were victims at Christmas markets in Berlin in 2016 and in Magdeburg in 2024. In early 2025, a trade union parade in Munich was the target of a similar attack.
