Twelve injured in Hamburg knife attack

HAMBURG: Twelve people were injured in a knife attack at the main train station in the northern German city of Hamburg on Friday, the local police and fire department said.

“According to initial information, a person injured several people with a knife at the main train station,” Hamburg police said in a post on X.

Separately, a spokesperson for the Hamburg fire department told AFP that 12 people had been injured and that some of the injuries were life-threatening.

On the other hand, there are media reports that police have arrested a suspect and a major operation is under way.

The attack at Hamburg Central Station took place around 18:00 local time – the evening rush hours on the last working day of the week.

Earlier this week, Bild – a right-wing German tabloid – cited data, which showed an average of 79 attacks per day in the country.

It said the police in Germany recorded a total of 29,014 criminal offenses related to knife attacks, with the number of serious knife injuries increasing by 10.8 per cent compared to the previous year.

KNIFE ATTACKS – A EUROPEAN DILEMMA

Strict gun control means the European nations do not witness the US-like gun violence.

However, the criminal gangs and extremists dodge the law enforcement agencies by using knives, thus avoiding firearms.

In one of such incidents, a student killed a girl and wounded three other pupils in a stabbing spree last month at a private high school in France, prompting the prime minister to urge better security in and around schools to combat “endemic youth violence”.      

Similarly, one person died and two police officers were seriously injured in a knife attack in eastern France in February earlier this year.

Three more officers were lightly wounded in the attack in the city of Mulhouse, carried out by a 37-year-old suspect who is on a terror prevention watchlist.

Meanwhile, Germany saw the far-right AfD jumping to the second spot in popular votes and number of Bundestag seats, as immigration remains a divisive issue in Europe.

That is why a deadly knife attack on a play school group in the Bavarian city of Aschaffenburg, where an Afghan man was arrested at the scene, had reignited a bitter immigration debate, a month before the February 25 elections.