Munich Car Attack Injures 28, Stokes Migration Debate

The driver who drove a car into a labor union demonstration in central Munich on Thursday injured at least 28 people, including children, reports the AP. The suspect, a 24-year-old Afghan asylum-seeker, was arrested. The incident follows a series of attacks involving immigrants in recent months that have pushed migration to the forefront of the campaign for Germany's Feb. 23 election. Participants in a demonstration by the service workers union ver.di were walking along a street at about 10:30am local time when the car overtook a police vehicle following the gathering, accelerated, and plowed into the back of the group, police said.

Officers arrested the suspect after firing a shot at the car, deputy police chief Christian Huber said. He added that at least 28 people were believed to be injured, some seriously. A damaged Mini was seen at the scene, along with debris, including shoes. Bavaria's interior minister, Joachim Herrmann, said the man was known to authorities in connection with theft and drug offenses. He said officials believe the protest was likely targeted at random. "We feel with the victims, we are praying for the victims—we hope very much that they all make it," Bavarian governor Markus Soeder told reporters at the scene.

The Munich incident comes three weeks after a 2-year-old boy and a man were killed in a knife attack in Aschaffenburg, also in Bavaria. An Afghan whose asylum application was rejected was the suspect in that attack. That followed knife attacks in Mannheim and Solingen last year in which the suspects were immigrants from Afghanistan and Syria, respectively. Germany's main opposition conservative bloc, in which Soeder is a prominent figure, has demanded a tougher approach to irregular migration, calling for many more people to be turned back at the border and for an increase in deportations.

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Curbing migration is also a core issue for the far-right Alternative for Germany, which polls put in second place behind the conservatives. "This is more evidence that we can't go from attack to attack and show dismay, thank police for their deployment," Soeder said. "This is not the first such act ... We are determined that something must change in Germany, and quickly." (More Munich stories.)