One dead, 16 injured in van attack at Berlin Pride; suspect at large

On a Saturday night in late July, as Berlin's Pride celebration wound down near the Brandenburg Gate, a white van swerved into Tiergarten park and plowed into a crowd of people gathered on a footpath. The vehicle struck multiple pedestrians before crashing into a tree. One person died. At least sixteen others were injured, several critically. By Sunday morning, German police had issued a nationwide wanted notice for the driver: a 21-year-old man identified as Abdul B., who had fled the scene on foot and remained at large.

The attack unfolded in the heart of the city's central park, close to where hundreds of thousands had marched earlier that day in what is known in Germany as Christopher Street Day—a Pride celebration that has been held in Berlin since 1979, named after the Stonewall Inn in New York. This year's parade, which ran under the motto "Taking a stand is hot," had drawn more than 80 floats and 50 groups on foot through the city center, past Potsdamer Platz and the Victory Column, culminating in a rally at the Brandenburg Gate. The day had been warm and sunny. The mood had been celebratory. Then, shortly before 10 p.m., everything changed.

Police said the vehicle struck people on the path and that one or more individuals then exited the van. Several people were also stabbed, authorities reported, though the exact sequence of events remained unclear in the immediate aftermath. A witness cited by the tabloid Bild described seeing a man emerge from the vehicle and flee on foot. Emergency responders set up a helicopter landing pad near the Reichstag parliament building to transport the most severely injured to hospitals. A manhunt involving helicopters and officers from multiple German states swept across the capital on Sunday.

Police identified the suspect as a member of what they described as Berlin's "Islamist scene." Florian Nath, a police spokesperson, told reporters that the man was known to authorities as someone with ties to Islamic circles in the city. "Our search for this person is proceeding at full speed," Nath said. However, he acknowledged that investigators had no information about the suspect's specific motives, the exact sequence of events, or even his precise role in the attack. The wanted notice warned the public to avoid direct contact with the suspect, cautioning that he may be armed and dangerous.

Chancellor Friedrich Merz vowed that those responsible would be punished. Berlin's mayor, Kai Wegner, called the assault "an attack on our free and cosmopolitan society." He said the city, which he described as "the city of freedom," had been attacked "in the most appalling way." Julian Methig, who had attended the Pride event, described it as one of the worst days for the queer community—a day he had hoped never to experience.

The attack forced organizers to cut short one of Europe's largest Pride festivals and arrives as Germany grapples with a series of deadly vehicle and knife attacks in recent years. Before last year's Pride parade, Berlin LGBTQ+ organizations had already sounded an alarm that attacks had become more frequent and that hard-won rights were under threat. Campaigners attributed the rise in hostility partly to growing support for the far-right Alternative für Deutschland party, now the most popular party in national opinion polls, and partly to an increase in Islamist-inspired violence. This year's parade had been organized explicitly in response to that escalating hostility. Now, on the day after the celebration, the community faced a tragedy that seemed to confirm their worst fears.