Mother and child die from injuries in Munich car attack

A mother, 37, and her two-year-old daughter have died from injuries sustained in Thursday’s car attack in the German city of Munich, police say.

At least 37 people were injured after a car was driven into a crowd of people at a trade union rally.

The driver was a 24-year-old Afghan asylum seeker, police said, identified in local media as Farhad N. He was arrested at the scene and prosecutors say he has admitted to carrying out the attack. He appeared to have a religious motivation, officials said.

The mother and child were among those taken to hospital with serious injuries after the attack.

“Unfortunately, we have to confirm the deaths today of the two-year-old child and her 37-year-old mother,” police spokesman Ludwig Waldinger told news agency AFP on Saturday.

The car ramming has brought security issues back into focus the week before federal elections are held in Germany.

A series of attacks have been carried out in Munich by immigrants, with two of the alleged attackers coming from Afghanistan.

The attack also happened on the eve of the Munich Security Conference, which began on Friday.

Upon arrival in the city on Friday, US Vice-President JD Vance expressed his condolences to the victims in the attack.

German authorities have said the suspect arrived in the country in 2016 and, although his application for asylum was turned down, was allowed to stay in Germany as he faced risks being deported back to Afghanistan. He had a valid residence and work permit.

He had no previous criminal record and police said there was no evidence of a link to a jihadist group. He also appears to have acted alone, police say.

On Friday, police said the suspect told officers during questioning that he had driven his Mini Cooper car intentionally into the crowd.

Munich public prosecutor Gabriele Tilmann told reporters the suspect had said “Allahu Akbar”, God is greatest in Arabic, when he was detained. She suggested he “may have had an Islamist motivation”.

Campaigning around Germany’s election on 23 February has been embroiled in a fevered debate about migration for weeks. The vote was brought by the collapse of German Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s coalition government last year.

A number of violent incidents linked to migrants over the past year have led to increased support for the far-right AfD party.

In December, six people were killed and at least 299 injured after a man drove a car into a German Christmas market.

The suspect was a 50-year-old Saudi asylum seeker who had been an outspoken critic of Islam.

And in January a two-year-old child and a passer-by who tried to help were killed after a group of children were stabbed in a park in the Bavarian town of Aschaffenburg, in an attack that shocked the country.

The suspect is a 28-year-old Afghan asylum seeker.