Berlin:
A knife attacker in Germany killed a two-year-old child and a man and seriously injured two other people on Wednesday, said police, who arrested an Afghan suspect at the scene.
It is the latest in a series of deadly knife attacks that have rocked Germany in recent months, fueling concerns about public safety.
The stabbing took place around 11:45 a.m. in a public park in the center of the Bavarian city of Aschaffenburg, police said.
According to German media, the attacker targeted a group of children from a daycare center who were in the park.
“Two people were fatally injured,” police said, while another two were seriously injured and treated in hospital.
The suspect, a 28-year-old man from Afghanistan, was arrested “in the immediate vicinity of the crime scene,” police said, without providing a motive.
German media reported that the man may have had psychological problems for which he had been treated. The suspect lived in an asylum seeker center in the area, reports news channel Der Spiegel.
Interior Minister Nancy Faeser said she was “deeply shocked” by the attack.
“The investigation will clarify the background to this terrible act of violence,” she said in a statement.
After the attack, police said there was “no evidence of other suspects” and that there was no further danger to the public.
A second person arrested by police was treated as a witness.
Authorities had cordoned off the park in Aschaffenburg, about 22 miles (36 kilometers) southeast of Frankfurt in western Germany.
Police said train traffic around the scene had been suspended and services had been delayed or diverted.
The suspect had tried to flee across the track, the Süddeutsche Zeitung reported.
– Shaken by stabbings –
Germany has been rocked by a wave of high-profile attacks, including the death of a police officer in June after he intervened in a knife attack during an anti-Islam rally in the city of Mannheim.
A man from Afghanistan was arrested on suspicion of committing the stabbing.
In August, three people were killed and eight injured in a stabbing at a street festival in the western city of Solingen.
The attack was claimed by Islamic State and police arrested a Syrian suspect.
The alleged Islamist motive behind the Solingen stabbing and the suspect's status as a migrant who was deported fueled a bitter debate over immigration.
The government responded to the incident by tightening controls on knives, limiting benefits for asylum seekers and giving security services new investigative powers.
Wednesday's attack in Aschaffenburg comes as Germany prepares for national elections on February 23.
The conservative CDU/CSU alliance currently leads in the polls with around 30 percent, while the far-right, anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany (AfD) is in second place with 20 percent.
Both parties have pledged to tackle illegal immigration.
The Conservatives have also promised a “de facto” ban on new asylum applications at the border.
In response to the latest attack, AfD co-leader Alice Weidel posted a message on X urging “remigration now!” – using a term adopted by the far right to call for the mass deportation of migrants.
Chancellor Olaf Scholz's centre-left Social Democrats are in third place in the polls, with around 16 percent of support.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by Our staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)