GERMANY: The driver is on the run …
A truck drove through the crowd on Monday night in a Christmas market in the center of Berlin, leaving at least nine dead and 50 wounded, police said. This tragedy reminds us of the circumstances of the attack of 14 July 2016 in Nice, in France when a truck on the evening of Bastille Day on the Promenade des Anglais.
Wir können 9 Tote & viele Verletzte bestätigen. Viele Kolleg. sind am #Breitscheidplatz im Einsatz um die Hintergründe zu ermitteln.
— Polizei Berlin (@polizeiberlin) December 19, 2016
BREAKING: Reports: Truck runs into crowded Christmas market in Berlin; multiple injuries reported.
— The Associated Press (@AP) December 19, 2016
Examined the terrorist track
“A person who is clearly the truck driver was stopped, a passenger died,” police said, after referring to “at least nine dead” and “at least 50 injured,” four of them seriously.
“We look at the trail of a terrorist attack but do not yet know the motives” of the act, said another spokesman. The police also called on Berliners to “stay home” as a precaution. Chancellor Angela Merkel said she was “in mourning” after learning of the tragedy.
Merkel “in mourning”
Several German media, the driver of the heavy goods, registered in Poland, fled after dark on the crowd. The German Chancellor Angela Merkel is “in mourning” because of the “new horrific,” said her spokesman Steffen Seibert on Twitter.
#Breitscheidplatz – Wir trauern um die Toten und hoffen, dass den vielen Verletzten geholfen werden kann. (2)
— Steffen Seibert (@RegSprecher) December 19, 2016
Images of the scene of the incident released by the website of local daily Berliner Morgenpost showed several stands of the Christmas market destroyed by the passage of the truck. The access places were immediately blocked by security forces.
