A van drove into people gathered for Berlin’s annual LGBTQ+ celebrations on Saturday, killing one person and injuring at least 15 others, police said. Some of the injured were in a life-threatening condition, and the incident led authorities to call off the event and a concert in the German capital hours after they had begun.
Police said the van entered Tiergarten park, near the route taken earlier by the pride march, hit several people and then crashed into a tree. As firefighters, ambulances and emergency staff attended to the injured, police asked people to leave the area immediately.
In a post on X, police called on everyone to leave the site of the event at once. They did not say how many officers had been sent to the scene, but said it was “definitely a lot of police”. In a short video posted on the Berlin police account on X, police officer Florian Nath said, “We are conducting an intensive search for possible suspects.”
Police spokesperson Alexander Klute later told The Associated Press that “at this point, we don’t know anything about any possible motives, the identity of the perpetrator or the perpetrators, or anything of that nature.”
Hundreds of thousands of people had gathered in Berlin on Saturday for the pride parade, known in Germany as Christopher Street Day, one of Europe’s biggest LGBTQ+ events. Before the incident, people had marched through the city for hours, danced to loud music and cheered around 80 floats taking part in the parade.
The event near the Brandenburg Gate, close to Tiergarten, was called off at about 10.15 pm, and a band’s stage performance was interrupted. People were urged to go home and avoid the route through the park.
Julian Miethig, who had been at the LGBTQ+ gathering near the Brandenburg Gate earlier, said he was on his way to an afterparty when a friend told him that “something bad happened there and there are a lot of fire trucks, a lot of emergency vehicles, ambulances”. He said he then went to Tiergarten and was shocked that such an incident could happen during Berlin’s pride celebrations. “It’s a dark day for the community,” he said.
The incident brought a sudden end to what had been a peaceful day of celebrations in Berlin, with one person dead, at least 15 injured and police continuing their search for possible suspects while the cause remained unclear.
With PTI Inputs
– Ends
Source link
[ad_3]
