International media outlets report that a truck plowed into a crowded Christmas market in central Berlin on Monday evening, killing 12 people and injuring 48 others in what Germany's interior minister said looked like an attack.
Police said on Twitter that they had taken one suspect into custody and that another passenger from the truck had died as it crashed into people gathered around wooden huts serving mulled wine and sausages at the foot of the Kaiser Wilhelm memorial church.
The nationality of the suspected driver, who fled the crash scene and was later arrested, was unclear, police said.
According to Reuters, German media cited local security sources as saying that there was evidence suggesting the arrested suspect was from Afghanistan or Pakistan and entered Germany in February as a refugee.
The truck had reportedly been stolen from a construction site in Poland.
The incident took place near a famous Berlin landmark – the Gedaechtniskirche or memorial church built in 1891-95, which was left a ruin with a jagged tower after it was damaged in World War Two bombing raids as a monument to peace and reconciliation.
German Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere said the circumstances of the crash were still unclear, adding: “I don't want to use the word 'attack' yet although a lot points to that.”
The incident evoked memories of an attack in Nice, France in July when a Tunisian-born man drove a 19-tonne truck along the beach front, mowing down people who had gathered to watch the fireworks on Bastille Day, killing 86 people. That attack was claimed by Islamic State.
CNBC reports that U.S. President-elect Donald Trump condemned what he called an attack, linking it to “Islamist terrorists” before German police officials had said who was responsible.
Germany has not in recent years suffered a large-scale attack from Islamist militants like those seen in neighboring Belgium and France.
