A van drove into a crowd gathered for Berlin‘s annual LGBTQ+ Pride celebrations on Saturday, killing one person and injuring at least 15 others before crashing into a tree, prompting police to cancel the event and launch a search for possible suspects.
Police said some of the victims had life-threatening injuries. Firefighters, ambulances and event emergency staff were treating the injured.
In a post on X, police urged everyone to leave the event site immediately.
According to police, a white van drove into Tiergarten park, next to the route the Pride march had taken earlier, striking several people before crashing into a tree. Police said a large number of officers had been deployed to the scene.
«We are conducting an intensive search for possible suspects,» police officer Florian Nath said in a short video posted on the Berlin police X account.
Police spokesperson Alexander Klute later told The Associated Press that «at this point, we don’t know anything about any possible motives, the identity of the perpetrator or perpetrators, or anything of that nature.»
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Hundreds of thousands of people had gathered in Berlin on Saturday for the city’s Pride parade, known in Germany as Christopher Street Day, one of Europe’s largest LGBTQ+ celebrations.
The event in front of the iconic Brandenburg Gate, near Tiergarten, was called off at about 10:15 p.m., with a band’s performance interrupted. People were urged to go home and avoid routes through the park.
Before the incident, revellers had celebrated peacefully, marching through the city for hours, dancing to loud music and cheering around 80 floats taking part in the parade.
Julian Miethig, who had attended the celebrations at Brandenburg Gate earlier, said he had been on his way to an after-party when a friend told him «something bad happened there and there are a lot of fire engines, a lot of emergency vehicles, ambulances».
He said he went to Tiergarten and was shocked that something like this could have happened at Berlin‘s Pride celebrations.
«It’s a dark day for the community,» he said.
(FRANCE 24 with AP)
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