German police say a man and a woman were fatally stabbed at a crowded train station in the town of Iserlohn in what was described as an “act of relationship violence.” The incident was the third fatal attack at a German train station within a month.
The dpa news agency reported on Saturday, Aug. 17, that police had arrested a 43-year-old man in connection with the attack on the woman, 32, and another man, who was 23. The station was full of people at the time, police said, including a wedding party of around 20 people. The suspect surrendered to police at the scene without resisting.
Police said in a statement that investigators found no reason to consider the attack as anything other than a case of domestic violence.
After the Frankfurt killing, Interior Minister Horst Seehofer called for more police at train stations and more security cameras in public places.
The killings follow another widely reported homicide at a train station in Germany. An 8-year-old boy died on July 29 after being pushed in front of a train in Frankfurt; police say the suspect, a 40-year-old Eritrean residing in Switzerland, had been under psychiatric treatment.
“According to witness reports, a 40-year-old man pushed the boy and his mother onto the track just as the ICE [high-speed train] was arriving. The mother, thank God, was able to save herself,” the spokeswoman, Isabell Neumann, told reporters.
Some witnesses who saw what happened chased after the man as he fled, eventually detaining him, DW reported.
A person who was riding in the train that hit the boy told the Hessenschau broadcaster: “People collapsed howling.” That person said there was a number of children on the train platform at the time.
Interior Minister Horst Seehofer strongly condemned the “horrific act.” Frankfurter Lord Mayor Peter Feldmann echoed the sentiment, adding in a statement: “What we know so far about the deed contradicts everything Frankfurt stands for. We Frankfurters stand together … we help people unselfishly, we rescue them from need, and we are there for each other—even on days like today, when there is a shadow over the city.”
The killing of the boy, which took place in Frankfurt, also took place around a week after another migrant, named as Jackson B., of Serbia, shoved a mother in front of a train, killing the 34-year-old, reported Bild.
Alice Weidel, head of the Alternative for Germany party, blamed what happened on Prime Minister Angela Merkel’s loose immigration policies, writing in a statement that “while Germany mourns, without a word of sympathy Merkel takes off on holiday.”
“The hideousness of this act can hardly be surpassed,” she added in another missive, demanding that the government “finally start to protect the citizens of this country.”
Germany opened its borders to anyone who wanted to migrate there in 2015, drawing castigation from some Germany and praise from others. More than 1.6 million people seeking asylum entered the country since 2014. The country’s Federal Statistics Office said late last year that 10.6 million people with foreign citizenship now reside in Germany, or roughly one in every eight people living in the country of 82 million.
NTD reporter Zachary Stieber, The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.