Three people were killed and six others were seriously injured after an attacker went on a stabbing spree at a festival in Germany's Soligen city on Friday.
According to police, they were informed about the incident around 9:30 pm and the attacker being on the run, they haven't been able to collect much information on him.
The witnesses from the festival have told the police that the attacker wounded people indiscriminately on a central square, the Fronhof.
As per witness accounts and preliminary investigation it is believed that the stabbings were carried out by a lone attacker.
One of the festival organizers, Philipp Müller, appeared on stage and asked festivalgoers to “go calmly; please keep your eyes open, because unfortunately the perpetrator hasn't been caught.”
He said many people had been wounded by “a knifeman.”
One helicopter was spotted overhead, and there were many police and emergency vehicles with flashing blue lights on the roads in the aftermath of the incident.
Several streets were closed off.
Police reported that at least five people were seriously injured, but Herbert Reul, the region's top security official, mentioned six injuries when he visited the scene early Saturday.
“None of us knows why” the attack took place, said Reul, who is the interior minister of North Rhine-Westphalia state.
“I can't say anything about the motive now” and it isn't clear who the assailant was, he also said and added that the attacker had left the scene “relatively quickly.”
Mayor Tim Kurzbach said in a Facebook post that “this evening, we in Solingen are all in shock. We all wanted to celebrate our city's anniversary together and now have dead and wounded to lament.”
“It breaks my heart that an attack on our city happened,” he added.
The local newspaper Solinger Tageblatt quoted Celine Derikartz, its reporter covering the festival, as saying that “the atmosphere is spooky.” She said a party atmosphere had turned to shock within minutes and she saw festivalgoers weeping.
The “Festival of Diversity,” marking the city's 650th anniversary, began on Friday and was supposed to run through Sunday, with several stages in central streets offering attractions such as live music, cabaret and acrobatics.
The city cancelled the rest of the festival after the attack. Solingen has about 160,000 residents and is located near the bigger cities of Cologne and Duesseldorf.
There has been concern about an increase in knife violence in Germany recently.
In May, a knife attack by an Afghan immigrant on members of a group that describes itself as opposing “political Islam” left a police officer dead.
Germany's top security official, Interior Minister Nancy Faeser, this month proposed toughening weapons laws to allow only knives with a blade measuring up to 6 centimeters (nearly 2.4 inches) to be carried in public, rather than the length of 12 centimeters (4.7 inches) which is allowed now.
(With AP inputs)
