German police hunt for assailant in festival stabbing that killed 3
Eight injured, five seriously
Police searching for the perpetrator
Remainder of weekend festival cancelled
Updates with scene from square in paragraph 7 and mayor in paragraph 8, details on Solingen in paragraph 17
By Petra Wischgoll, Tom Sims and Rene Wagner
SOLINGEN, Germany, Aug 24 (Reuters) -Police hunted on Saturday for an unknown assailant hours after he killed three people and wounded others in a stabbing attack at a festival in the western German city of Solingen.
Eight were injured, five of them seriously, the police said in a statement early on Saturday.
"Both victims and witnesses are currently being questioned. The police are currently searching for the perpetrator with a large team," police said.
The incident occurred around 9:40 p.m. (1940 GMT) on Friday, when the man attacked multiple people with a knife, the police said, adding that the motive remained unclear.
"The perpetrator must be quickly caught and punished to the fullest extent of the law," German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said in a post on X.
Germany's interior minister, Nancy Faeser, said security authorities were doing everything they could to catch the person and investigate the background to the attack, which occurred at the Fronhof, a market square in Solingen where live bands were playing. It was during a festival marking the 650th anniversary of the city in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, which borders the Netherlands.
Police had cordoned off the square on Saturday, and passers-by placed candles and flowers outside the barricades.
"We are full of shock and grief," Solingen Mayor Tim-Oliver Kurzbach told journalists on Saturday morning.
The German musician who goes by the name Topic said he was playing on a nearby stage when the incident occurred. He was told about what happened but was asked to continue "to avoid causing a mass panic attack", he posted on Instagram.
He was eventually told to stop, and "since the attacker was still on the run, we hid in a nearby store while police helicopters circled above us," Topic wrote.
Authorities cancelled the remainder of the weekend festival.
The perpetrator aimed specifically for people's throats, one police spokesperson said. A second spokesperson later wouldn't confirm or deny that detail, and pointed to a news conference scheduled for the afternoon.
Fatal stabbings and shootings are relatively uncommon in Germany. The government said earlier this month it wanted to toughen rules on knives that can be carried in public by reducing the maximum length allowed.
In June, a 29-year-old policeman died after being stabbed in Mannheim during an attack on a right-wing demonstration. A stabbing attack on a train in 2021 injured several.
North Rhine-Westphalia's interior minister, Herbert Reul, visited the scene early on Saturday. He told reporters it was a targeted attack on human life but declined to speculate on the motive.
Solingen, well known for its knife manufacturing industry, is a city of some 165,000 people.
Fatal knife attack in Germany https://reut.rs/3YYc22e
Additional reporting by Thilo Schmuelgen
Editing by William Mallard, Sam Holmes and Frances Kerry, Kirsten Donovan
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