Act of violence at a school in Berlin-Neukölln: Two girls aged seven and eight were injured by a knife attack – one of them life-threatening. A 39-year-old man was arrested. The background is still unclear.
Two girls fell victim to a knife attack in a school on Mainzer Strasse in Berlin-Neukölln on Wednesday afternoon. The children are between the ages of seven and eight, a police spokeswoman told rbb. One of the two children is in mortal danger, the other was seriously injured. Both are now in a hospital, according to police.
The alleged perpetrator – a 39-year-old man – was arrested on site at the school in Mainzer Straße, the spokeswoman said. The spokeswoman did not provide any further information about the arrested person or the crime.
The homicide squad took over the investigation. The police are currently still on site, as are pastors who take care of witnesses.
According to the German Press Agency, the crime happened in the courtyard of the elementary school, which belongs to the Neukölln Evangelical School on Mainzer Straße. According to its own statements, the school combines a primary school with an integrated secondary school and a high school. Children in grades 1 to 13 attend the school, which is sponsored by the Evangelical Church in Berlin-Brandenburg-Silesian Upper Lusatia.
Berlin’s Interior Senator Iris Spranger (SPD) was dismayed: “I was informed about the knife attack on two school children in Neukölln. I’m deeply shocked,” she wrote on Twitter. She now trusts the police and the judiciary, it said. Spranger expressed her condolences to the children, their families and classmates.
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