A night meant for music, marches and rainbow flags in the heart of Berlin descended into panic when a vehicle drove into a crowd near the city’s Gay Pride celebrations, killing one person and injuring 16 others as police launched a sweeping manhunt for a 21-year-old suspect.
The violence cut short what had been a jubilant Christopher Street Day — among Europe’s largest Pride events — as hundreds of thousands of revellers were forced to flee Tiergarten park while sirens rang out across the centre of the capital.
Police said the suspect’s vehicle was later found abandoned a few hundred metres from the main festivities in Tiergarten.
Authorities mounted a major search operation across Berlin, deploying helicopters and drawing officers from several German states.
Police and prosecutors urged the public to come forward with information about a 21-year-old man identified as Abdul B., cautioning that he may be armed and dangerous.
Officials believe the suspect has connections to “Islamist circles,” police spokesperson Florian Nath said earlier.
Police and first aid responders at the scene in Berlin
The attack unfolded shortly before 10pm local time last night.
According to police, a vehicle resembling a mini-van or an SUV “entered the Tiergarten park and hit several people”.
One person was killed and 16 others were hurt, including three who suffered life-threatening injuries, Berlin fire department spokesperson Dominik Pretz said.
Emergency teams also treated around 30 additional people for shock at the scene.
Police described the suspect as slender, about 1.90 metres (6’3″) tall, with black hair, wearing a black hoodie and white trousers.
Investigators said several victims were believed to have been wounded with stabbing weapons, and witnesses reported seeing one or more people leave the vehicle after the incident.
Berlin’s mayor Kai Wegner spoke to the media near the scene
The episode rekindled memories of the car rammings and market attacks that have jolted Germany in recent years and intensified a contentious national debate over public security.
Chancellor Friedrich Merz pledged that those behind the latest incident would be held to account.
In a statement, Mr Merz called it a “horrific act” and said he and Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt were being kept up to date as the investigation unfolded.
Berlin Mayor Kai Wegner denounced what he described as a brutal assault on “a gathering for a tolerant and peaceful Berlin”.
More than 2,000 officers had been deployed to secure the Pride event.
After the attack, reinforcements from across the country joined the search, backed by helicopters fitted with thermal-imaging cameras.
An AFP journalist at the scene reported numerous emergency vehicles lined along a nearby road, and a large tent was erected as police searched the area.
Hundreds of thousands participated in Christopher Street Day, an annual march that draws crowds from across Europe.
The parade route ended beside the Brandenburg Gate, where concerts have been held since Friday.
Germany has seen a string of violent incidents in public places, including a stabbing in February 2025 at Berlin’s Holocaust memorial — close to the scene of yesterday’s incident — in which a Spanish tourist was seriously wounded.
A Syrian man, identified only as Wassim Al M., was sentenced in March to 13 years in prison for that attack, after the court found he acted in the name of the so-called Islamic State group.
In May, a German man drove a car at high speed on a street in the eastern city of Leipzig, killing two people and injuring six.
Last month Taleb Jawad al-Abdulmohsen, a 51-year-old Saudi psychiatrist, was sentenced to life in prison for killing six people and wounding more than 300 when he drove a rented SUV through a crowded Christmas market in 2024 in the eastern city of Magdeburg.
Abdulmohsen was an anti-Islam activist and his trial testimony was sometimes incoherent and riddled with conspiracy theories and fringe far-right ideas.
The deadliest attack in recent years was a truck rampage at a Berlin Christmas market in December 2016 that killed 12 people.
Yesterday’s incident comes just two months before Berliners vote to elect a new state assembly.
Polling suggests Mr Merz’s centre-right CDU is bracing for a strong challenge from the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) and the far-left Linke parties.
Berline mayor Mr Wegner said this month he would not seek re-election, following months of criticism over his response to a major blackout in January that was apparently caused by sabotage.
