Mayor of Gouda safe after knife attack in sister city Solingen, suspect on the run

The mayor of Gouda, Pieter Verhoeve, was visiting the German city of Solingen on Friday evening when a knife attack took place there, a spokesman for the mayor said. According to German media, there were fatalities and injuries. "The delegation from Gouda has been safely accommodated in the hotel", Verhoeve wrote on X.

Gouda and Solingen are twin cities. The German city celebrated its 650th anniversary on Friday evening. The festive evening came to a "cruel end," Verhoeve wrote. He wished "all relatives, our twin city and mayor and friend Tim Kurzbach a lot of strength". According to Verhoeve's spokesperson, the mayor was in Solingen together with aldermen Thierry Van Vugt and Michiel Bunnik.

Three people were killed and eight others injured, five of them seriously, in a knife attack in the German town of Solingen near Düsseldorf on Friday evening. There is no trace of the perpetrator.

The police assume that the perpetrator, who struck at around 9:40 p.m., acted alone. The perpetrator is an unknown man, the police announced on Saturday morning. "The investigators now have to put all the pieces of the puzzle together," a police spokesman said Friday evening. The spokesman did not want to confirm rumors in the media about what the man looked like. However, all witness statements indicate that he acted alone.

"We have no information about his possible whereabouts," said the police. When asked on Saturday morning, a spokesperson could not say whether the perpetrator may have fled to the Netherlands, although the border is only "half an hour away if you are quick."

According to the German police, the case is no longer classified as a rampage but an attack. Furthermore, police investigations so far have shown that the perpetrator acted in a targeted manner, German news broadcast Tagesschau reported.

The victims who died in the knife attack were two men and one woman. The North Rhine-Westphalian Ministry of the Interior informed that the victims were stabbed in the neck, indicating that it was a targeted attack.
Interior Minister Herbert Reul said that the perpetrator had "stabbed randomly out of nowhere. "We in North Rhine-Westphalia are deeply shocked and united in grief." He could not yet say anything about a motive. In Solingen, the town's 650th anniversary was celebrated with a big party on Friday evening.

According to eyewitnesses, the perpetrator was able to escape in the panic that ensued after the knife attack. Many people who saw the incident are in shock, a police spokesman said. "They are being looked after professionally, and we are questioning them hoping to get further information."

All festivities planned for Saturday and Sunday to celebrate the city's anniversary have been canceled. "We all wanted to celebrate our city's anniversary together, and now we have to mourn the dead and injured. It tears my heart apart that there was an attack on our city. I have tears in my eyes when I think of those we have lost. I pray for all those still fighting for their lives," Solingen mayor Tim Kurzbach wrote on Facebook Friday evening. He also thanked all the rescue and security forces for their efforts.