A vehicle drove at high speed into a crowd gathered at Berlin's annual Pride celebration on Saturday night, killing one woman and injuring at least 16 others, several of them critically. The attack took place at around 10pm local time in the Tiergarten — Berlin's large central park, which serves as both a green lung for the city and a traditional gathering point for the LGBTQ community — near the closing rally of the Christopher Street Day (CSD) parade. According to police, a white van turned off Lennéstraße and struck multiple people along a park path before crashing into a tree. Witnesses also reported that a man fled the vehicle after the collision and attacked further victims with a bladed weapon, with some accounts mentioning a machete. Police said they were investigating whether there was a "second phase" of the attack following the vehicle ramming, though they cautioned that witness accounts varied and no firm conclusions had been drawn.
Authorities identified a suspect — named by police as 21-year-old Abdul B. — in the early hours of Sunday morning, though he had not been arrested as of Sunday morning. Police described him as known to authorities and connected to Islamist circles in Berlin. According to the German news agency DPA, he had been released from a youth detention facility only in May 2026 and has family in Berlin. Officers released his photograph and warned the public not to approach him, describing him as approximately 1.90 metres tall, slim, and last seen wearing a black hoodie and white trousers. A raid on an apartment in the Schöneberg district of Berlin, carried out by special forces in the early hours of Sunday, found no one present. More than 2,200 police officers had been deployed across Berlin since Saturday morning to protect the Pride events.
The attack struck at the heart of one of Europe's largest LGBTQ celebrations, which had drawn hundreds of thousands of participants to the German capital. The parade, featuring around 80 floats, had passed peacefully through the city for hours. German pop star Sarah Connor was performing at the closing rally near the Brandenburg Gate when the event was abruptly halted; the word "Evacuation" appeared in yellow on the large video screens, and a presenter urged the crowd to leave calmly. Connor later said on Instagram: "I can't find the words. I find it terrible."
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz condemned what he called an "appalling act" and said he was in close contact with Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt to ensure the attack was "fully investigated and punished." Berlin's mayor, Kai Wegner, visited the scene overnight and said the attack was "an assault on our free and open society," adding: "We will not let our way of life be taken from us." Thirty additional people were given psychological support by emergency services at the scene.
The incident adds to a pattern of vehicle-ramming attacks in Germany in recent years and raises urgent questions about the security of large public events. Investigators said they still had no confirmed information on the precise motive, the exact sequence of events, or whether the suspect acted alone. A public tip line has been set up as authorities continue their manhunt.