Man ploughs through German market, kills 5

Describing himself as a former Muslim, the suspect shared dozens of tweets and retweets daily focusing on anti-Islam themes and criticising the religion

- Agencies

MAGDEBURG: Germans on Saturday mourned the victims and their shaken sense of security after a 50-year-old Saudi doctor intentionally drove into a Christmas market teeming with holiday shoppers, killing at least five people, including a 9-year-old child, and wounding at least 200 others, of whom 41 are in very serious condition.

Authorities arrested the man at the site of the attack in Magdeburg, on Friday evening, and took him into custody for questioning. He has lived in Germany since 2006, practicing medicine in Bernburg, about 40 kilometers south of Magdeburg, officials said.

The state governor, Reiner Haseloff, told reporters that the death toll rose to five from a previous figure of two and that more than 200 people in total were injured.

Chancellor Olaf Scholz said, "There is no more peaceful and cheerful place than a Christmas market. What a terrible act it is to injure and kill so many people there with such brutality."

Neurosurgeon Mahmoud Elenbaby said some 80 patients were brought to Magdeburg's university hospital on Friday night. "We managed to stabilise most of them, but many are still in intensive care, and some are also in critical condition." Elenbaby told The Associated Press as he dashed into the hospital cafeteria to buy himself a cola.

Mourners lit candles and placed flowers outside a church near the market on the cold and gloomy day.