Memorial held for victims of knife attack in Germany
27 June 2021, 17:04
Three women were killed in the incident in Wuerzburg on Friday.
A memorial service has been held in the German city of Wuerzburg for the victims of a knife attack that left three women dead.
A further five people were seriously injured during the incident inside and outside a shop in the centre of the Bavarian city on Friday.
The suspect, a 24-year-old Somali man, was shot in the leg by police and arrested after people surrounded him and tried to hold him at bay with chairs and sticks.
Investigators were continuing to try and determine what was behind the attack by what they believe was a lone assailant.
They are assessing the suspect’s mental health and trying to determine whether he was radicalised as an Islamic extremist.
It was unclear whether he deliberately targeted women.
“We are all affected, because it could have happened to anyone,” Wuerzburg’s Catholic bishop, Franz Jung, said at the service in the city’s cathedral.
The service was attended by relatives of victims, the regional Protestant bishop, a representative of the city’s Muslim communities, Germany’s main Jewish leader, Bavaria’s political leaders, and police and rescue officers.
Mayor Christian Schuchardt warned that “the crimes of individuals should never be ascribed or extended to ethnic groups, religions or nationalities”, adding that Somalis and refugees in general must not be blamed.
Flowers were piled up outside the nearby store where the attack started.
Bavaria’s governor, Markus Soeder, laid a wreath and described the attack as “simply incomprehensible, appalling, senseless”.
“We must never answer such a hate-filled deed with hatred or revenge,” Mr Soeder said.
“I’m reading on the internet that some are saying, ‘it was someone with an immigrant background’. Yes, but didn’t people with an immigrant background also help in exactly the same situation?”
