A 2-year-old Moroccan boy and a 41-year-old German man were killed in Wednesday’s attack in the southern German state of Bavaria, while three other people, including a 2-year-old Syrian girl, were injured. An Afghan (28) man has been arrested by police in connection with the attack.
According to police, the suspect was undergoing psychiatric treatment and had a history of violent behavior. Furthermore, he remained in Germany while receiving mental health treatment despite having stated that he would leave voluntarily in December. The suspect was supposed to be deported last June, but “errors and problems” ultimately made it difficult to arrange his return, according to Bavarian Interior Minister Joachim Hermann. Following the stabbing in Aschaffenburg, Christian Social Union (CSU) leader and Bavarian Premier Markus Söder stated that “security first” should be the main priority. Chancellor Olaf Scholz condemned the attack as “an unbelievable act of terror.”
Following a fatal stabbing in his city, Aschaffenburg Mayor Jürgen Herzing said he was “shaken up” and urged composure. At a wreath-laying ceremony in the city, however, he also cautioned that there were “parallels” with other attacks, citing fatalities in the German cities of Magdeburg, Solingen, and Würzburg.
Six people were killed and at least 299 others were injured when a Saudi national was driven into a crowd at the Magdeburg, Germany, Christmas market just one month ago. The offender was a Saudi physician who had been granted permanent residency in Germany after arriving there in 2006.
A rejected Syrian asylum seeker who was allegedly an Islamic State supporter fatally stabbed three people during a Solingen city festival on August 23, 2024. The assault rekindled a long-running discussion about weapons laws and illegal immigration. Three people were killed when a Somali refugee attacked pedestrians in the heart of Würzburg in 2021 with a kitchen knife.
At the commemoration, Muslim community leaders from Aschaffenburg were also present and held signs with a verse from the Quran that reads, “When someone takes a life, it will be as if they killed all of humanity.”
German Opposition Argues for Stricter Asylum Policy
German opposition leader Friedrich Merz has called for a stop to illegal immigration and a halt to border controls. The Christian Democratic Union (CDU) leader has pledged to increase deportations if he becomes chancellor. The far-right Alternative for Germany party has called for deportation of “dangerous” asylum-seekers and closer cooperation with Afghanistan.
Nancy Faeser, the German interior minister, stated that the government is “working hard to deport further criminals to Afghanistan.”Despite concerns about human rights under Taliban rule, the German government deported people to Afghanistan last year.The EU’s Dublin Regulation, which mandates that an asylum-seeker’s application be handled in the country of arrival, was also criticized by Faeser. The suspect had traveled from Bulgaria to Germany.
Mass Sexual Assault in Milan on New Year’s Eve
At least five young women have told the police that they were mistreated during New Year’s Eve festivities in Milan’s Piazza Duomo. The claims of group sexual violence have now prompted an investigation by Italian prosecutors.
The alleged assault by immigrant men engaging in “Taharrush gamea,” which translates to “collective harassment” in Arabic.
The ‘nightmare’ of having men grab at them while others attack them under their clothes was recalled by Laura Barbier, one of six Belgians who went to the Piazza del Duomo to watch the fireworks with British victims. She described how three of the four female students were groped and subjected to sexual assault to the Belgian news agency Sudinfo.
One of the British victims, Imogen, who we have only identified by her first name, gave a horrifying account of how she was “grabbed and pulled back” by strangers in the crowd. She claimed that one of them attempted to use their hands to sexually assault her while another allegedly made reference to rape. She also described how the police ignored her complaints at first until she demonstrated how she was bleeding from fighting off her assailants. They then comforted her, saying the attackers were men from Bangladesh and that it was a “known problem.”
There are parallels between the cases that occurred in Cologne, Germany, on NYE in 2015–16 and Milan two years ago. The attackers in each instance had a track record of migration.