Germany: Police arrest woman who 'turned against passengers', injuring 17

German police on Friday said they had arrested a woman after at least 17 people were injured in a knife attack at the main station in the northern city of Hamburg.

Some of the victims sustained life-threatening injuries in the stabbing, which took place in the middle of the city’s evening rush hour, emergency services said.

The suspect, a 39-year-old German woman, was arrested at the scene by law enforcement, a Hamburg police spokesman said.

Officers “approached her, and the woman allowed herself to be arrested without resistance”, Florian Abbenseth told journalists in comments carried by public broadcaster ARD.

“We have no evidence so far that the woman may had a political motive,” Abbenseth said.

“Rather, we have information based on which we now want to investigate whether she may have been experiencing a psychological emergency.”

The suspect was thought to have “acted alone”, Hamburg police said in a post on X.

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At least 17 people were injured in the attack, a spokesman for the Hamburg fire department told AFP.

Four of them had suffered life-threatening injuries, the spokesman said, revising down an initial figure.

A previous statement by the fire department said six people were in a life-threatening condition.

Among the 17 victims were six severely injured people and seven people with light injuries, the spokesman for the fire department said.

Busy station

The attack was reported by German media to have taken place just after 6:00 pm (1600 GMT) on one of the platforms in front of a standing train.

The suspect was thought to have turned “against passengers” at the station, a spokeswoman for the Hanover federal police directorate, which also covers Hamburg, told AFP.

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Some of the victims in the attack were treated onboard waiting trains in the station, German daily Bild reported.

Images of the scene showed access to the platforms at one end of the station blocked off by police and people being loaded into waiting ambulances.

Forensic police could also be seen walking up and down the platforms where the attack took place.

German rail operator Deutsche Bahn said on X that four platforms at the station had been closed while investigations were ongoing.

The incident would lead to “delays and diversions in long-distance services”, Deutsche Bahn said in a post on X, adding that it was “deeply shocked” by the incident.

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz also expressed his shock in a call with the mayor of Hamburg following the attack.

“My thoughts are with the victims and their families,” Merz said, according to a readout from his spokesman Stefan Kornelius.

Germany has been rocked in recent months by a series of violent attacks with often jihadist or far-right extremist motivations that have put security at the top of the agenda.

The most recent, on Sunday, saw four people were injured in a stabbing at a bar in the city of Bielefeld.

The investigation into the attack had been handed over to federal prosecutors after the Syrian suspect in the attack told the police officers who arrested him that he had jihadist beliefs.

The question of security – and the immigrant origin of many of the attackers – was a major topic during Germany’s recent election campaign.

The vote at the end of February saw Merz’s conservative CDU/CSU top the polls and a record score of over 20 percent for the far-right, anti-immigration Alternative for Germany.