German police say 4 women and a boy killed in Christmas market attack

More details emerged on Sunday about people killed when a man drove a car at high speed through a Christmas market in Germany, as mourners laid flowers and other tributes at the site of the attack.

Police in the central city of Magdeburg, where the attack occurred on Friday evening, said the victims were four women aged between 45 and 75, as well as a 9-year-old boy whom they had spoken to a day earlier.

Officials said 200 people were injured, 41 of them in critical condition. He was being treated in several hospitals in Magdeburg, which is about 130 kilometers west of Berlin, and beyond.

Authorities have identified the suspect in the Magdeburg attack as a Saudi doctor who came to Germany in 2006 and received permanent residence.

Saturday evening, the suspect was brought before a judge, who behind closed doors ordered that he be detained pending possible indictment.

Police have not publicly released the suspect’s name, but several German news outlets identified him as Taleb A., hiding his last name to conform with privacy laws, and reported that he was an expert in psychiatry and psychotherapy.

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He also accused German authorities of failing to take adequate steps to combat the “Islamization of Europe”.

Fears over another incident of mass violence in Germany make it likely that migration will remain a major issue as Germany heads towards early elections on February 23.

The far-right Alternative for Germany party was already polling strongly amid a social backlash against the influx of refugees and migrants into Germany over the past decade.

Right-wingers across Europe have criticized German authorities for allowing high levels of migration in the past and now see these as security failures.

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, known for years for a strong anti-migration position, used the attack in Germany to attack the EU’s migration policies.

At an annual press conference in Budapest on Saturday, Orban stressed that “there is no doubt that there is a connection between the changed world in Western Europe, the migration that takes place there, especially illegal migration, and terrorist acts.”

Orbán vowed to “fight back” against the EU’s migration policies “because Brussels wants Magdeburg to also side with Hungary.”