A mother and her two-year-old daughter have died after they both sustained serious injuries when a car ploughed into a crowd in Munich.
The tot and her mum, 37, were among the 36 people injured after a man drove into crowds in Thursday, February 13, police have confirmed, reports the Mirror.
A 24-year-old man from Afghanistan who came to Germany as an asylum-seeker was arrested immediately after the incident. On Friday, February 14, prosecutors said the perpetrator appeared to have had an Islamic extremist motive. However, there was no evidence that he was involved with any radical network.
Police confirmed on Friday that two of those hurt were very seriously injured. On Saturday, Bavaria’s state criminal police office revealed that the young girl and her mother, a 37-year-old woman from Munich, had died of their injuries, German news agency dpa reported.
Police said on X: “The suspect is a 24-year-old man of Afghan nationality. He drove a car into a gathering in the Seidlstrasse area from behind. According to current information, 28 people were injured, some seriously. During the arrest we fired a shot at the vehicle.”
As reported by The Mirror, German premier Chancellor Olaf Scholz said: “An Afghan perpetrator has severely injured people, and that is not something that we can tolerate or accept. This perpetrator cannot hope for any leniency. He must be punished and he must leave the country. The government will be starting flights back to Afghanistan despite the lack of diplomatic ties.”
It was the fifth in a series of attacks involving immigrants over the past nine months that have pushed migration to the forefront of the campaign for Germany’s election on February 23.
Chancellor Olaf Scholz visited the scene of the attack on Saturday, (February 15) and laid a white rose at an improvised memorial.