Confirmation that police are investigating the Munich car crash as a “suspected attack” will fill Germans with dread and add fuel to an already highly emotional election debate.
It’s just under two months since a Saudi doctor was accused of driving his car into a crowd at a Christmas market in Magdeburg, killing six and injuring hundreds.
On Thursday, authorities confirmed the 24-year-old Afghan driver of a mini that hit people in Munich has been detained.
Police allege that he sped up when he got close to a group of demonstrators.
It’s believed children are among the injured.
Police investigate a car that hit a crowd in Munich. Pic: Reuters
Munich latest: Car ramming was ‘suspected attack’
While people take in the horror of what has happened, they are acutely aware that next weekend voters will go to the polls in an election where the far right is currently coming second.
An attack in Aschaffenburg that killed two in January, where the suspect was also an Afghan man, meant the election debate was already firmly fixed on the topic of migration.
With the traditionally anti-immigration far-right Alternative for Germany party (AfD) proving popular, the current front runners, the Christian Democrats (CDU), hardened their position.
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The incident occurred in central Munich
The leader Friedrich Merz published a five-point plan which included making border checks permanent and potentially turning away some asylum seekers as they tried to enter.
His draft motion only cleared parliament with the help of AfD votes, breaking a long-standing taboo of not working with the far right and prompting hundreds of thousands to take to the streets in protest.
Leaders of all parties have already denounced the suspected attack in Munich and pledged to take tough action, but the pain triggered by the senseless act will only widen divisions in this already divided country.
