The German musician who goes by the identify Matter mentioned he was enjoying on a close-by stage when the incident occurred. He was informed about what occurred however was requested to proceed “to keep away from inflicting a mass panic assault”, he posted on Instagram.
He was ultimately informed to cease, and “because the attacker was nonetheless on the run, we hid in a close-by retailer whereas police helicopters circled above us,” Matter wrote.
Witness Lars Breitzke informed the Solinger Tageblatt newspaper he was a number of metres from the assault, not removed from the pageant stage, and “understood from the expression on the singer’s face that one thing was incorrect”.
“After which, a metre away from me, an individual fell,” mentioned Breitzke, who at first thought it was somebody who had an excessive amount of to drink.
When he rotated, he noticed different folks mendacity on the bottom amid swimming pools of blood.
Solingen mayor Tim-Oliver Kurzbach mentioned the entire metropolis was in “shock, horror and nice grief”.
“All of us wished to have fun our city’s anniversary collectively and now now we have to mourn the useless and injured,” he mentioned.
Authorities have cancelled the rest of the weekend pageant.
Deadly stabbings and shootings are comparatively unusual in Germany. The federal government mentioned earlier this month it wished to toughen guidelines on knives that may be carried in public by lowering the utmost size allowed.
In June, a 29-year-old policeman died after being stabbed in Mannheim throughout an assault on a right-wing demonstration. A stabbing assault on a practice in 2021 injured a number of.
North Rhine-Westphalia’s inside minister, Herbert Reul, visited the scene early on Saturday. He informed reporters it was a focused assault on human life however declined to take a position on the motive.
Solingen, well-known for its knife manufacturing business, is a metropolis of some 165,000 folks.
