A vehicular attack in Berlin, Germany, kills 12 and injures 56 people at a Christmas market.
2016 Berlin truck attack
On 19 December 2016, a truck was deliberately driven into the Christmas market next to the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church at Breitscheidplatz in Berlin, leaving 12 people dead and 56 others injured. One of the victims was the truck's original driver, Łukasz Urban, who was found shot dead in the passenger seat. The truck was eventually stopped by its automatic brakes. The perpetrator was 24-year-old Anis Amri, an unsuccessful asylum seeker from Tunisia. Four days after the attack, he was killed in a shootout with police near Milan in Italy. An initial suspect was arrested and later released due to lack of evidence. Nearly five years after the attack, a man who was critically injured during the attack died from complications related to his wounds, becoming the 13th victim. The attack is the deadliest act of terror in Germany since the 1980 Oktoberfest bombing in Munich, which killed 13 people and injured 211 others, and as of December 2023, it remains the worst Islamist terrorist attack by number of casualties in German history.
Christmas market
A Christmas market is a street market associated with the celebration of Christmas during the four weeks of Advent. These markets originated in Germany, but are now held in many countries. Some in the U.S. have adapted the German name to quasi-English Christkindlmarket, swapping German Markt and market.