Pope Francis expressed his pain and closeness after the attack in which a 50-year-old Saudi suspect ran over a large number of people at a Christmas market in Germany, leaving at least 5 dead, including a nine-year-old child, and 200 injured.
“Pope Francis has welcomed with bewilderment the news of the attack in which several people have been murdered and many others have been injured,” indicates a telegram sent by Cardinal Pietro Parolin, Vatican Secretary of State, to the President of Germany, Dr. Frank-Walter Steinmeier.
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“His Holiness expresses his participation in the pain of the affected people and assures all victims of his spiritual closeness,” the text continues, referring to the attack on Friday, December 20.
“At the same time, thank everyone who has been working and supporting the victims in this difficult time. “Pope Francis prays for the deceased and entrusts men to Christ, our hope, whose light shines in the darkness,” he continues.
The Holy Father also “heartily invokes divine help and consolation for all,” the text concludes.
The attack on the Christmas market in Germany
The attack occurred at the Christmas market in Magdeburg, a city of about 240,000 inhabitants, where there are 140 stalls, a skating rink and a children’s play area.
CNN in Spanish reports that on Saturday, December 21, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz told reporters: “There is no more peaceful and joyful place in Germany than the Christmas markets, when people gather before the Christmas party and spend “Some time together, drink mulled wine, eat a sausage together to relax together.”
“What terrible act is that, hurting and killing so many people with such brutality?” he questioned.
Local authorities declared mourning in the city and held funerals for the deceased on Saturday night.
The suspected driver is a 50-year-old psychiatrist born in Saudi Arabia, named Taleb Al-Abdulmohsen, who works in Saxony-Anhalt and has lived in Germany since 2006.
According to BBCthe man ran a website to help ex-Muslims flee persecution in their home countries. Since October 2020, he had been working at a health center, but according to it, he had been absent due to illness and vacation since October 2024.
The Magdeburg attack occurred almost exactly eight years after more than a dozen people were killed when a truck driven by an Islamic extremist plowed into a crowd at a Berlin Christmas market.
In November 2023, two teenagers aged 15 and 16 were arrested in Germany on suspicion of terrorism. They were reportedly sympathizers with the Islamic State and were believed to be planning an attack on a Christmas market using a vehicle, as reported by CNA Deutsch—EWTN News’ German-language agency—earlier this year.
In April, German authorities reported the arrest of four suspects who were allegedly planning terrorist attacks against Christians attending religious services and police stations using knives and Molotov cocktails.
Walter Sánchez Silva
I have been a husband since 2008. My wife and I have three children here and one who went to heaven in 2023, before he was born. Since I joined ACI Prensa in 2005, I have had the opportunity to cover various events of the Catholic Church. Among them, the World Youth Days in Cologne, Madrid and Rio de Janeiro and the apostolic trips of Pope Benedict XVI to Mexico and of Pope Francis to South Korea. I have been sent to the Vatican to cover the Family synods, in 2015; of the Amazon, in 2019 and that of Synodality, in 2023. I closely follow the situation of the Catholic Church in Nicaragua, which suffers persecution from the dictatorship of Daniel Ortega, as well as current ecclesiastical events in the region.