Children among 28 injured as car driven into Munich crowd in 'suspected attack' by Afghan national

At least 28 people have been injured, two of them seriously, after an Afghan national drove a car into a crowd gathered for a union demonstration in a "suspected attack" in Munich, police and officials have said.

Children were among those hurt, Munich mayor Dieter Reiter said, but this has not been confirmed by officials.

The 24-year-old man, who has not been named, was an asylum-seeker, and was arrested at the scene. He did not pose any further threat, officers said.

He was known to authorities for theft and drug offences, Bavaria's state interior minister, Joachim Herrmann, said.

The car approached police vehicles at the scene before speeding up when the driver saw officers and driving into people, a police spokesperson has said.

Bavarian governor Markus Soeder has said it "is suspected to be an attack - a lot points to that".

Officers shot into the car, a cream-coloured Mini Cooper during the incident at a square near downtown Munich, close to the city's central train station at around 10.30am (9.30am GMT), police said.

Munich latest: Car ramming was 'suspected attack'

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz called the events "horrible" and a "terrible attack", saying "an Afghan perpetrator has severely injured people, and that is not something that we can tolerate or accept.

"This perpetrator cannot hope for any leniency. He must be punished and he must leave the country.

"The government will be starting flights back to Afghanistan despite the lack of diplomatic ties."

Deputy police chief Christian Huber said a police car was "following" the demonstration [by the service workers' union ver.di] when "a vehicle approached it from behind" and made to overtake, then "accelerated and drove into the back of the demonstration".

Officers then "took the perpetrator aside" and shot the vehicle, he added, as the suspect was "seized".

Reuters news agency reports a passer-by said he witnessed the car threading its way between the police vehicles before accelerating.

It was not clear whether demonstrators were among the injured or if the incident was related to the rally.

A badly damaged cream-coloured Mini could be seen after the attack along with debris including shoes.

Sandra Demmelhuber, a journalist for local broadcaster, BR24, posted a picture on X showing the damaged car surrounded by police and emergency crews.

She said: "There is a person lying on the street and a young man was taken away by the police. People were sitting on the ground, crying and shaking. Details are still unclear."

The incident is not suspected to be connected to the upcoming Munich Security Conference which starts on Friday around a mile away.

US Vice President JD Vance and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy are arriving later on Thursday.

Security has been in sharp focus in Germany following a spate of attacks involving immigrants in recent months and ahead of a federal election next week.

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A two-year-old boy and a man were killed in a knife attack in Aschaffenburg, also in Bavaria.

An Afghan whose asylum application was rejected was the suspect in that attack.

Those killings followed knife attacks in Mannheim and in Solingen last year in which the suspects were immigrants from Afghanistan and Syria, respectively - in the latter case, also a rejected asylum-seeker who was supposed to have left the country.

A Saudi doctor known to authorities was the suspect in December when a car rammed people at a Christmas market in Magdeburg, killing six.

(c) Sky News 2025: Children among 28 injured as car driven into Munich crowd in 'suspected attack' by Afghan national