At around 1.45pm GMT (2.45pm local time) the owner of a silver-coloured Mercedes estate “swerved around safety barriers” before ramming into children at a carnival parade in the town of Volkmarsen Germany this afternoon. One eyewitness claimed that the driver drove more than 30 metres into the crowd of people before his car eventually came to a stop.
According to police, the driver of the vehicle was arrested at the scene of the crime, which caused over 30 people to need emergency medical treatment.
The driver was reportedly aged around 20-30, was said to still be accelerating when pulled from the vehicle by the police. Police have said they are yet to know if the crash was an accident or an intentional attack, “Regardless of whether it is a medical emergency or a technical failure or if at worst there is intention behind it, we cannot say anything about it,” said a police spokesperson.
Paramedics were quickly on the scene treating the injured, some of which were reported to include several young children. Many ambulances, police units and other emergency services were called to the scene as well as an emergency helicopter.
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Volkmarsen Germany, which has a small population of 7,000, is east of Duesseldorf, near Kassel. The incident took place during Carnival celebrations featuring festive floats, during a carnival that takes place in Germany every year before Ash Wednesday.
This incident today comes only a week after a terrorist shot nine people dead in a far-right motivated terrorist attack, before then killing his mother and then himself in the German town of Hanau.
