A 24-year-old Afghan asylum-seeker was arrested after driving a car into a labor union demonstration in Munich, injuring at least 28 people. The incident, which authorities are treating as an attack, comes amid heightened concerns over migration in Germany ahead of the February 23 election.
A driver plowed a car into a labor union demonstration in central Munich on Thursday, injuring at least 28 people, including children, authorities said. The incident is being treated as an attack. The suspect, a 24-year-old Afghan asylum-seeker, was arrested after police fired a shot at the car. The driver deliberately accelerated and rammed the rear of a group of participants in a demonstration by the service workers' union ver.di who were walking along a street at around 10:30 a.m.
Police said the suspect, who lived in Munich and had a valid residence permit, was known to authorities from previous investigations in which he had been a witness due to a former job as a store detective. At least 28 people were injured, some of them seriously. A damaged Mini was seen at the scene, along with debris including shoes. Authorities believe the protest was likely targeted at random. Bavaria's state interior minister, Joachim Herrmann, said the suspect's asylum application had been rejected, but he couldn't be deported. The Munich incident comes three weeks after a 2-year-old boy and a man were killed in a knife attack in Aschaffenburg, also in Bavaria. An Afghan whose asylum application was rejected was the suspect in that attack, which propelled migration to the center of the German election campaign. The Aschaffenburg attack followed knife attacks in Mannheim and Solingen last year in which the suspects were immigrants from Afghanistan and Syria, respectively -- in the latter case, also a rejected asylum-seeker who was supposed to have left the country. In the December Christmas market car ramming in Magdeburg, the suspect was a Saudi doctor who previously had come to various regional authorities' attention. Germany’s main opposition conservative bloc, in which Soder is a prominent figure, has demanded a tougher approach to irregular migration, calling for many more people to be turned back at the border and for an increase in deportations. Curbing migration is also a core issue for the far-right Alternative for Germany, which polls put in second place behind the conservatives. 'This is more evidence that we can’t go from attack to attack and show dismay, thank police for their deployment,’ Soder said. ‘This is not the first such act ... We are determined that something must change in Germany, and quickly.’ Alternative for Germany’s co-leader, Alice Weidel, posted on social network X: ‘Is this supposed to carry on forever? Migration turnaround now!’ Center-left Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s government said it already has done a lot to reduce irregular migration, and that the opposition’s plans are incompatible with German and European Union law. ‘Anyone who commits crimes in Germany will not just be punished severely and have to go to prison, but must expect that he cannot continue his stay in Germany -- and that also goes for countries that it is very difficult to send people back to,’ he said. The chancellor noted that his government deported convicted criminals to Afghanistan on a flight in August and is working to do so again -- ‘and not just once, but continually.’ The Bavarian capital will see heavy security in the coming days because the three-day Munich Security Conference, an annual gathering of international foreign and security policy officials, opens on Friday. Herrmann said authorities do not believe the car ramming was connected to the conference, but they still need to determine the motive
GERMANY MIGRATION ATTACK ASYLUM SEEKERS MÜNCHEN ELECTION
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