Driver arrested after steering car into people at Christmas market in Germany

A car drove into a group of people at a Christmas market in the eastern German city of Magdeburg on Friday, German news agency dpa reported. There was no immediate word on whether people were killed or injured.

The driver of the car was arrested, the agency said, citing unidentified government officials in the state of Saxony-Anhalt. Regional government spokesperson Matthias Schuppe and city spokesperson Michael Reif said they suspected it was an attack.

“This is a terrible event, particularly now in the days before Christmas,” Saxony-Anhalt Gov. Reiner Haseloff said.

Haseloff told dpa that he was on his way to Magdeburg but couldn’t immediately give any information on victims or what was behind the incident.

Magdeburg, which is west of Berlin, is the state capital of Saxony-Anhalt and has about 240,000 inhabitants.

On Dec. 19, 2016 in Berlin, an Islamic extremist attacker plowed through a crowd of Christmas market-goers with a truck, leaving 13 people dead and injuring dozens more. The attacker was killed days later in a shootout in Italy.

German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser had said late last month that there were no concrete indications of a danger to Christmas markets this year, but that it was wise to be vigilant.