A risk to life and limb' Politicians reject calls to ban killer firework bombs

Politicians reject calls to ban killer firework bombs

- Deborah Cole & Senay Boztas

Seven-year-old Necati Karki had gathered with his family as part of a crowd in their neighbourhood in northern Berlin when a treacherous new addition to the New Year's Eve festivities went off: a "firework bomb".

Fired out of a pipe by unknown assailants and possibly deliberately aimed, the illegally imported pyrotechnic - called a Kugelbombe (spherical bomb) - flew straight into the group of mainly women and children, injuring eight. Karki has undergone at least three operations and is still fighting for his life, with horrific injuries to the lower half of his body, one of his adult brothers reported on Instagram.

"I'm from a place where terrible things happen every day, but what they allow to happen here is really a catastrophe," said a Kurdish refugee from Turkey who runs a local bakery. Over the 25 years she has lived in Germany, she said she has seen the year-end celebrations turn ever scarier.