A day of concerts, celebrations, and music for Berlin Pride, one of the largest LGBTQ+ parades in Europe, ended in terror. Around 10 p.m. , a white SUV was seen entering the Tiergarten city park and plowing into the crowd gathered there, killing one person—a woman, according to Der Spiegel—and injuring sixteen others, some seriously.

There is a suspect, yet to be arrested: Abdul B., 21, is known to authorities and has ties to "Islamist circles." The young man fled on foot when the SUV, after hitting people, crashed into a tree. "We are actively searching for one or more people suspected of being involved in the accident," said the police, who have mobilized a "massive deployment of forces" and cordoned off the area between Potsdamer Platz and the southern side of the Tiergarten tunnel in search of clues and evidence. Witnesses reported that some people also suffered stab wounds, while others reported seeing a man dressed in black with a machete. "An integral part of the investigation," the police explained, "is to determine whether there was a second phase of the crime after the one in which the vehicle was in motion. Whether someone then got out of the vehicle and attacked people with possible stab weapons, injuring them." The vehicle, empty and badly damaged, has been seized.

Berlin Mayor Kai Wegner called it an "attack on our free and international society. Berlin is the city of freedom—and today our freedom has been attacked in the most terrible way." "We will work with particular determination to thoroughly investigate this abominable act and ensure it is punished," said German Chancellor Friedrich Merz .

Yesterday, hundreds of thousands of people participated in Christopher Street Day (CSD) under the slogan "Haltung ist hot" (Taking a stand is hot). The annual CSD demonstrations commemorate June 28, 1969, when police raided the Stonewall Inn, a gay bar in New York City. Days of clashes with activists followed, events widely considered the birth of the modern gay rights movement.

The German capital is still reeling from the stabbing of a Spanish tourist near the Holocaust Memorial in February 2025, just two days before parliamentary elections. In early March, a young Syrian man was sentenced to 13 years in prison for the attack—one of many, mostly committed by foreigners—that fueled the rise of the German far right.

(Unioneonline/D)

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