German police launch manhunt after car drives into Berlin Pride crowd

A manhunt is under way in Berlin after a car crashed into a crowd near the city’s Pride parade, killing a woman and injuring at least 16 others, many seriously.After the car collided with a tree, the driver fled the crash scene on foot into the adjacent Tiergarten Park, triggering an overnight police search of the park with sniffer dogs, and helicopters equipped with floodlights.Berlin police said they have identified a suspect who has not been arrested and he has ties to Islamic extremists in the German capital.German authorities on Sunday issued a wanted notice for the 21-year-old fugitive suspect, whom they identified as Abdul B.READ MORE“The suspect is known to police. He is known to us as a member of Islamic circles here in Berlin, and our search for this person is proceeding at full speed,” said police spokesman Florian Nath. He did not identify the suspect by name.Police said some survivors of the attack were being treated for stab wounds in local hospitals.The first emergency calls of a white car crashing into a crowd reached Berlin’s fire brigade at 9.58pm from the scene, between Berlin Philharmonic concert hall and the entrance to an underground traffic tunnel.Four minutes later first responder police and fire brigade were on the scene, as the annual Christopher Street Day (CSD), one of the biggest Pride festivals in Europe, concluded nearby with an open-air concert at the Brandenburg Gate.People wrapped in blankets stand near the scene where several people were injured on the sideline of the Christopher Street Day parade in Berlin, Germany. Photograph: EPA Emergency services spokesman Dominik Pretz said the attack happened outside the official party mile through the city, which had been blocked off all day to cars with special barriers and police vehicles.“But the Tiergarten park and around here was still a party area with quite a number of people out and about,” he added.Within minutes police sealed off the crash site and investigators began probing the car, which had both airbags visibly activated.By 11pm large areas of the park was sealed off. Armed police officers, including from Germany’s GSG9 special forces, could be seen patrolling in pairs, some with sniffer dogs. Dozens of vehicles lined the park perimeter while armoured vehicles with floodlights moved into the heart of the park in the hope of tracking the driver.Police, emergency personnel and attendees of the Pride event near the scene where one person was killed and around 16 injured after a car struck people. Photograph: Ralf Hirschberger/AFP via Getty Images At the scene, Berlin’s governing Kai Wegner expressed outrage at how the city’s 48th annual CSD/Pride parade was “ended by this terrible deed”.“But Berlin, as a city of freedom and diversity, will only get stronger,” he said. “We will not allow anyone take from us our way of living together.”Chancellor Friedrich Merz condemned the attack, via a spokesman, as an “abominable act”.Saturday’s parade attracted hundreds of thousands of people to the streets of the German capital and was ending with an open-air concert and food market. Organisers immediately announced the event was over shortly after 10pm, cutting the music and projecting the word “evacuate” on a large screen beside the stage at the western side of the Brandenburg Gate.“Sadly we have to end the concert prematurely because of a difficult situation,” said an organiser onstage, in clips circulating on social media, urging revellers to avoid the direction of the crash scene on the way out.“The partygoers left the scene immediately in an orderly way, there was no panic,” said Pretz, emergency services spokesman.