{"id":604681,"date":"2026-07-26T07:40:10","date_gmt":"2026-07-26T07:40:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/604681\/"},"modified":"2026-07-26T07:40:10","modified_gmt":"2026-07-26T07:40:10","slug":"german-police-launch-manhunt-after-van-drives-into-berlin-pride-crowd-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/604681\/","title":{"rendered":"German police launch manhunt after van drives into Berlin Pride crowd \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Berlin<\/a> police are hunting for a 21-year-old man with Islamist links after a van attack on Berlin\u2019s Pride parade on Saturday evening left one woman dead and at least 16 injured, many seriously.<\/p>\n

Police released a picture of the man, identified only as Abdul B, saying he is 190cm tall with black hair and of slim build. He was wearing a black hoodie and white trousers at the time of the attack, is reportedly known to police and was released earlier this year from a Berlin youth prison. <\/p>\n

Police urged the public not to approach him but contact them instead with any information.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur initial suspicions are directed at this person,\u201d said Florian Nath, Berlin police spokesman. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe are seeking this person and haven\u2019t found them yet.\u201d <\/p>\n

The vehicle used in the attack, a white mini-van, came to a halt after hitting a tree, after which the driver fled the crash scene on foot into the adjacent Tiergarten Park. <\/p>\n

An overnight search of the park involved teams of armed police, many with sniffer dogs, with helicopters overhead equipped with floodlights. <\/p>\n

\"BerlinBerlin police say there are searching for a 21-year-old suspect who they have named as Abdul B <\/p>\n

Early on Sunday morning special forces searched a train station and apartment near the crash scene but said they were still seeking Abdul B. <\/p>\n

Police said several survivors of the attack were being treated for stab wounds in local hospitals.<\/p>\n

The first emergency reached Berlin\u2019s fire brigade at 9.58pm from the scene, between the Berlin Philharmonic concert hall and the entrance to an underground traffic tunnel.<\/p>\n

Four minutes later first responder police and fire brigade were on the scene, as the annual Christopher Street Day (CSD), one of the biggest Pride festivals in Europe, concluded nearby with an open-air concert at the Brandenburg Gate.<\/p>\n

\"PeoplePeople wrapped in blankets stand near the scene where several people were injured on the sideline of the Christopher Street Day parade in Berlin, Germany. Photograph: EPA <\/p>\n

Emergency services spokesman Dominik Pretz said the attack happened outside the official party mile through the city, which had been blocked off all day to cars with special barriers and police vehicles.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut the Tiergarten park and around here was still a party area with quite a number of people out and about,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Within minutes police sealed off the crash site and investigators began probing the car, which had both airbags visibly activated.<\/p>\n

By 11pm large areas of the park were sealed off. Armed police officers, including from Germany\u2019s GSG9 special forces, could be seen patrolling in pairs, some with sniffer dogs. <\/p>\n

Dozens of vehicles lined the park perimeter while armoured vehicles with floodlights moved into the heart of the park in the hope of tracking the driver.<\/p>\n

\"Police,Police, emergency personnel and attendees of the Pride event near the scene where one person was killed and around 16 injured after a car struck people. Photograph: Ralf Hirschberger\/AFP via Getty Images <\/p>\n

At the scene, Berlin\u2019s governing Kai Wegner expressed outrage at how the city\u2019s 48th annual CSD\/Pride parade was \u201cended by this terrible deed\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut Berlin, as a city of freedom and diversity, will only get stronger,\u201d he said. \u201cWe will not allow anyone take from us our way of living together.\u201d<\/p>\n

Chancellor Friedrich Merz condemned the attack, via a spokesman, as an \u201cabominable act\u201d.<\/p>\n

Saturday\u2019s parade attracted hundreds of thousands of people to the streets of the German capital and was ending with an open-air concert and food market. <\/p>\n

Organisers immediately announced the event was over shortly after 10pm, cutting the music and projecting the word \u201cevacuate\u201d on a large screen beside the stage at the western side of the Brandenburg Gate.<\/p>\n

\u201cSadly we have to end the concert prematurely because of a difficult situation,\u201d said an organiser onstage, in clips circulating on social media, urging revellers to avoid the direction of the crash scene on the way out.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe partygoers left the scene immediately in an orderly way, there was no panic,\u201d said Pretz, emergency services spokesman.<\/p>\n

German singer Sarah Connor, who was performing at the time the CSD show was cancelled, took to social media to offer her condolences to the families of the dead and injured.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am at a loss for words, I find it terrible,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n

This year\u2019s CSD had a more political edge than in recent years, and adopted the slogan \u201ctaking a stand is hot\u201d. Organisers and participating organisations urged revellers to inform and organise themselves given growing threats to the LGBTQ+ community. Early on Sunday, a planned CSD closing brunch event was cancelled.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Berlin police are hunting for a 21-year-old man with Islamist links after a van attack on Berlin\u2019s Pride…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":604682,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[41],"tags":[25123,9,10,13,14,6621,6,11,12,15,16,5,7,8,65,66,67],"class_list":["post-604681","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-world","tag-berlin","tag-breaking-news","tag-breakingnews","tag-featured-news","tag-featurednews","tag-germany","tag-headlines","tag-latest-news","tag-latestnews","tag-main-news","tag-mainnews","tag-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topstories","tag-world","tag-world-news","tag-worldnews"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116985149869590572","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/604681","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=604681"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/604681\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/604682"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=604681"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=604681"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=604681"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}