A state politician and federal police say that two people have been killed in a knife attack on a train in Germany. The attack took place in the northern state of Schleswig-Holstein that borders Denmark.
Schleswig-Holstein’s state Interior Minister Sabine Sütterlin-Waack told the German dpa news agency that two people had been killed and five injured in the attack.
Meanwhile, the AFP news agency quoted federal police (the Bundespolizei), responsible for safety on the road and rail networks, as saying two were killed. The police spokesperson also said that several people had been injured.
Sütterlin-Waack and the Bundespolizei both said that a suspect had been arrested. According to police, a man attacked other travelers on board with a knife. The crime took place shortly before 3 p.m. local time (1400 UTC/GMT).
What else do we know so far?
Police said the attack took place as the train was approaching the Brokstedt station, a small community of around 2,000 people north of Hamburg and south of Kiel. A suspect was arrested when the train reached Brokstedt station. Multiple travelers had called the emergency services from the train.
The station was closed to allow emergency services to continue their work on site.
According to police, further details remained elusive around two hours after the attack. Neither suspected motives or reasons for the attacker’s actions, nor the condition of those injured was entirely clear.
Police later added that the suspect was thought to be a young man, probably between 20 and 30, and was not thought to have been on any extremist watch lists, based on preliminary checks.
The dpa news agency also reported, but this time citing security sources speaking off the record, that the man was exhibiting signs of a pyschiatric illness.
The region’s interior minister, Süttlerin-Waack of the Christian Democrats, was informed of the crime while in the state parliament. She first consulted with state premier Daniel Günther. By early evening, she had arrived in Brokstedt.
DW