Despite an immediate search, the perpetrators escaped undetected
Photo: spreepicture
By Dirk Böttger and Xaver Malkus
Cowardly attack on volunteer rescuers in Berlin-Mitte!
On Wednesday shortly before 11 p.m., the Mitte volunteer fire department was called to a fire on Bernauer Strasse – and was attacked with firecrackers during their operation.
The perpetrators fled. Despite an immediate search by the police, they escaped undetected.
For the volunteer rescuers it was probably the low point of a difficult night. Before the cowardly attack, they had already saved a person who had run in front of a tram on Torstrasse and landed under the tram. They then extinguished a flaming garbage can on Hannoversche Strasse and drove to a fire alarm system, which turned out to be a false alarm.
Just one day earlier, on Halloween, around 3:30 p.m., young adolescents with a migrant background rioted in the area of Brunnenstrasse, Pankstrasse, Provinzstrasse and Humboldthain. Firecrackers and pyrotechnics were thrown, and a bullet bomb exploded in the Gesundbrunnen Center.
The members of the volunteer fire department escaped the attack without injuries, and no damage has been found to the fire engine so far. But for all the firefighters and police officers who save people’s lives every day, the attacks are a bitter foretaste of the approaching New Year.
Last year there were massive attacks on the fire brigade and police in Berlin on New Year’s Eve. The sad result: 143 police officers and 90 firefighters were injured in action.