A police spokeswoman in nearby Dusseldorf told AFP early on Saturday that the manhunt was also underway outside Solingen, with many checkpoints set up on roads around the city.
There is still no full description of the suspect, and police are scouring the internet for information about Friday night’s attack, including photos and videos.
According to an AFP photographer, a large number of police, including special forces and a helicopter, were at the scene immediately after the attack.
The attacker “stabbed people indiscriminately with a knife,” Bild newspaper reported.
The festival was one of the events dedicated to the city’s 650th anniversary.
The mayor of Solingen, Tim Oliver Kurzbach, said in a statement published online that the entire city was in “shock, horror and great grief”.
“We all wanted to celebrate our city’s anniversary together, and now we have to mourn the dead and wounded,” he said.
Kurzbach thanked the emergency services for their work at the scene and expressed his condolences to the people in front of whom the attack took place.
North Rhine-Westphalia’s Prime Minister Hendrik Wuest also spoke of his “shock and grief” in a post on Platform X.
“An act of the most brutal and senseless violence has struck at the heart of our land,” he said.
“The entire state of North Rhine-Westphalia supports the people of Solingen, especially the victims and their families,” the politician added.
About 150 thousand populated Solingen is equidistant from Düsseldorf and Cologne.
On Friday evening, people gathered for the first three-day “Festival of Diversity” events. Its organizers have announced that the festival is being cancelled.
Germany has seen a spate of knife attacks in the past 12 months, with Interior Minister Nancy Faeser vowing to crack down on such crimes.
At the end of May, a man armed with a knife killed a police officer and injured five others during a far-right rally in Mannheim.
2024-08-24 07:21:35