HK family injured in axe attack on train passengers in Germany

Four Hong Kong people were injured on board a train in Germany when an Afghan refugee attacked train passengers with an axe and a knife before he was shot dead by police.

The Hong Kong Immigration Department said the Hong Kong family were members of a group of five, and that four of the five were injured.

It is understood that the four injured are the father, 62, the mother, 58, the daughter, 27, and the daughter’s boyfriend, 31.

The father and the boyfriend attempted to protect the other members of the group when the refugee carried out the attack. The severity of their injuries remained unclear.

The other member of the group, their 17-year-old son, was not injured.

The department has already contacted the Hong Kong family in Germany and has been providing assistance. It has also contacted the Chinese embassy in Berlin, the Chinese consulate in Munich, China’s foreign ministry office in Hong Kong, as well as Germany’s embassy in Beijing to find out more about the incident.

German police stand by the train on which a 17-year-old Afghan refugee attacked passengers with an axe.Photo:EPA

It is understood that the Chinese authorities in Germany are getting in touch with the local hospitals and police.

The attack happened around 9.15pm German time on the train which runs between Treuchlingen and Wuerzburg in Bavaria.

Four people were severely injured but at present it is unclear if they were the Hong Kong people in question.

Another train passenger was slightly injured and 14 others were treated for shock.

German police shot dead a 17-year-old Afghan refugee after he attacked train passengers with an axe and a knife, seriously wounding three in what one official said was a “probable” Islamist attack.

Joachim Herrmann, the interior minister of Bavaria state, said the assailant had arrived as an unaccompanied minor in Germany and had lived at first in a shelter and then more recently with a foster family in nearby Ochsenfurt.

“It is quite probable that this was an Islamist attack,” said a ministry spokesman, adding that the attacker had shouted “Allahu akbar” (God is greatest).

However he stressed that the investigation was ongoing and that the assailant appeared to have acted alone.

The attack happened around 9.15pm on the train, which runs between Treuchlingen and Wuerzburg in Bavaria.

“Shortly after arriving at Wuerzburg, a man attacked passengers with an axe and a knife,” a police spokesman said.

Four people were reported seriously injured and one other lightly injured. Fourteen people were treated for shock.

“The perpetrator was able to leave the train, police left in pursuit and as part of this pursuit, they shot the attacker and killed him,” the spokesman said.

Hermann later said that the teenager was shot when he attacked police while trying to flee the scene.

A special police force unit happened to be nearby and was able to mobilise quickly, Hermann added.

Germany has thus far escaped the kind of large-scale jihadist attacks seen in the southern French city of Nice last week, in which 31-year-old Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel used a truck to mow down people leaving a Bastille Day fireworks display, killing 84 people. The attack was claimed by the Islamic State group.

In May in Germany, a mentally unstable 27-year-old man carried out a knife attack on a regional train in the south, killing one person and injuring three others.

Early reports suggested he had yelled “Allahu akbar” but police later said there was no evidence pointing to a religious motive. He is being held in a psychiatric hospital.

Germany let in a record nearly 1.1 million asylum seekers last year, with Syrians the largest group followed by Afghans fleeing ongoing turmoil and poverty in their country.

However the number of refugees arriving in Germany has fallen sharply as a result of the closure of the Balkans migration route and an EU deal with Turkey to stem the flow.

In April, May and June, the number was around 16,000 each month, less than a fifth of the tally seen at the start of the year, according to official figures.

Bavaria is governed by the Christian Social Union (CSU), sister party to Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservative Christian Democrats.

The CSU has been loudly critical of Merkel’s welcoming stance toward asylum seekers, a split that threatened the unity of the ruling coalition in Berlin and sent the government’s approval ratings plunging.

It has also lent support to a right-wing populist party, Alternative for Germany, which was founded as a eurosceptic protest party in 2013 but now mainly rails against Islam and Germany’s refugee influx.

It currently polls at around 10 percent and is represented in half of Germany’s 16 states as well as the European Parliament.

Merkel’s popularity has rebounded recently but the attack in Bavaria is likely to revive political tensions.

(SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST)