A 29-year-old police officer died on Sunday after being repeatedly stabbed during an attack at an anti-Islam rally in Germany.
A knife-wielding man attacked and wounded several people on Friday on the market square in the city of Mannheim in southwest Germany.
Five people taking part in a rally organized by Pax Europa, a campaign group against radical Islam, were wounded in the attack.
Photo: AP
The police officer was “stabbed several times in the area of the head” while trying to intervene, local police said in a statement.
Immediately following the attack, he underwent “emergency surgery and was put in an artificial coma,” but “died of his injuries” on Sunday, police said.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said that he was “deeply saddened” by the death of the police officer following the “terrible attack.”
“His commitment to the safety of all of us deserves the highest recognition,” Scholz wrote on social media.
If an Islamist motive behind the attack were to be confirmed, “that shows how strongly we must continue to fight Islamist terror,” German Minister of the Interior and Community Nancy Faeser said in a statement.
“Our security authorities have the Islamist scene firmly in their sights,” Faeser said.
“We must defend ourselves against Islamist terrorism with determination, and we will also strengthen the security authorities financially,” German Minister of Finance Christian Lindner told German daily Bild.
Germany has been on high alert for possible Islamist attacks since the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war, with the nation’s domestic intelligence chief warning that the risk of such assaults is “real and higher than it has been for a long time.”
The nation had also seen a spate of attacks on politicians at work or on the campaign trail ahead of EU elections on Sunday.
German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier last week said that he was worried by the growing trend and said Germans “must never get used to violence in the battle of political opinions.”
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