6 people hurt in a knife attack on a bus in Germany. No political or religious motive seen
Police officers stand in front of a bus on a special route to a city festival in Siegen, Germany, Friday, Aug. 30, 2024, after a suspect allegedly attacked other passengers on the bus with a knife. Credit: AP/Sascha Ditscher
BERLIN — Police arrested a 32-year-old woman after six people were hurt in a knife attack on a bus headed to a festival in western Germany. Authorities said Saturday that there was no evidence of a political or religious motive.
Three of those attacked are in life-threatening condition, police said on Friday evening.
The knife attack took place in Siegen, east of Cologne. The bus was on its way to a local festival in the town and at least another 40 people were on board when the attack took place at about 7:40 p.m.
Police and prosecutors said the six people wounded were aged between 16 and 30 and all were from the region. By Saturday morning, three of them had left the hospital after outpatient treatment.
Local authorities planned to go ahead with the festival.
The stabbing in Siegen happened a week after a knife attack in Solingen, a city in the same state of North Rhine-Westphalia, in which a suspected Islamic extremist from Syria who had avoided being deported is accused of killing three people and wounding another eight.
The Solingen attack prompted the governing coalition to draw up plans to tighten knife laws and make deportations easier.
Police said the woman arrested in Siegen was a German citizen with no immigrant roots.
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