Eighteen injured in knife attack as woman arrested

Eighteen folks had been injured in a knife assault on the most important railway station within the German metropolis of Hamburg on Friday night, police mentioned.

Hamburg police mentioned on Saturday that 4 of the victims who had sustained life-threatening accidents had been in a steady situation.

Officers arrested a 39-year-old German lady on the scene of the assault, which happened at about 18:00 native time (16:00 GMT) on Friday.

Police mentioned there was “very concrete proof” of psychological sickness within the suspect, and no proof the assault was politically motivated.

The girl stays in police custody and is scheduled to look in court docket on Saturday.

The assault occurred between platforms 13 and 14 – that are accessible by way of a busy most important street – whereas a prepare was on one of many platforms.

The suspect started stabbing folks ready for the prepare, however was stopped by the “fast intervention” of two folks on the platform in addition to emergency providers, police mentioned.

The victims vary in age from 19 to 85. Seven folks had been barely injured, seven severely injured, and 4 critically injured, police mentioned.

The critically injured – a 24-year-old feminine, 24-year-old male, 52-year-old feminine, and an 85-year-old feminine – had been steady as of Saturday.

Police mentioned on Saturday that after additional investigations, there was nonetheless no proof the assault was politically motivated.

“Moderately, there may be now very concrete proof of a psychological sickness on the a part of the suspect,” it mentioned, including there was no proof that the lady was below the affect of medicine or alcohol.

An investigation by murder division into the incident is ongoing.

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz mentioned the assault was “surprising” and thanked the emergency providers on the bottom for “their fast help”.

German rail operator Deutsche Bahn mentioned on Friday night that 4 platforms on the station had been closed and a few providers would expertise delays and diversions.

Photos from the scene present quite a few emergency service personnel and autos on the bottom, and boundaries that appear to be hiding the injured from public view.

A video on social media seems to indicate the suspect together with her arms behind her again being escorted out of the station platform by officers who put her in a police automobile.

Hamburg’s central station is one in every of Germany’s busiest transport hubs, with greater than 550,000 travellers per day, in line with its web site. It’s usually crowded throughout Friday rush hour.

That is the most recent in a collection of violent assaults in Germany in latest months.

In January, a two-year-old boy and a 41-year-old man had been killed in a stabbing in a park in Aschaffenburg, with a number of others harm.

A Spanish vacationer was stabbed just a month later at Berlin’s Holocaust Memorial.

Final December, six folks had been killed and a whole lot had been injured after a car drove into a crowd at a Christmas market within the jap metropolis of Magdeburg.

The suspects in these earlier assaults had been migrants, which has led Germany to tighten border control checks and noticed immigration change into a key difficulty for voters in the course of the nation’s federal elections in February.