The German musician who goes by the identify Subject stated he was taking part in on a close-by stage when the incident occurred. He was advised about what occurred however was requested to proceed “to keep away from inflicting a mass panic assault”, he posted on Instagram.
He was finally advised to cease, and “because the attacker was nonetheless on the run, we hid in a close-by retailer whereas police helicopters circled above us,” Subject wrote.
Witness Lars Breitzke advised the Solinger Tageblatt newspaper he was a couple of metres from the assault, not removed from the pageant stage, and “understood from the expression on the singer’s face that one thing was fallacious”.
“After which, a metre away from me, an individual fell,” stated Breitzke, who at first thought it was somebody who had an excessive amount of to drink.
When he circled, he noticed different folks mendacity on the bottom amid swimming pools of blood.
Solingen mayor Tim-Oliver Kurzbach stated the entire metropolis was in “shock, horror and nice grief”.
“All of us needed to rejoice our city’s anniversary collectively and now we’ve to mourn the useless and injured,” he stated.
Authorities have cancelled the rest of the weekend pageant.
Deadly stabbings and shootings are comparatively unusual in Germany. The federal government stated earlier this month it needed to toughen guidelines on knives that may be carried in public by lowering the utmost size allowed.
In June, a 29-year-old policeman died after being stabbed in Mannheim throughout an assault on a right-wing demonstration. A stabbing assault on a prepare in 2021 injured a number of.
North Rhine-Westphalia’s inside minister, Herbert Reul, visited the scene early on Saturday. He advised reporters it was a focused assault on human life however declined to invest on the motive.
Solingen, well-known for its knife manufacturing trade, is a metropolis of some 165,000 folks.
