Home » international news » After Nice, it's Germany: 17-year-old axe-wielding teen injures 20 on a train
 

After Nice, it's Germany: 17-year-old axe-wielding teen injures 20 on a train

Sahil Bhalla | Updated on: 10 February 2017, 1:48 IST

UPDATE: ISIS has now claimed responsibility for this attack

A 17-year-old teenager armed with an axe and a knife attacked and injured about 20 passengers on a train in Wurzburg, Germany. Three people were seriously injured while another sustained light injuries. This, before the attacker was shot dead by the police on the evening of Monday, 18 July.

Karl-Josef Hildenbrand/dpa/AFP

According to Bavaria's interior minister, Joachim Hermaan, the attacker was an Afghan asylum seeker. He arrived in the country as an unaccompanied minor and lived with a foster family in Ochesenfurt, just south of where the incident took palce. Witnesses on the train said the attacker had shouted "Allahu Akbar" during the attack.

Here's all the latest we know:

Germany houses an estimated 1.2 million refugees. The number of asylum seekers in Europe, by the end of 2017, would be around 3 million, according to the European commission.

As for Afghan citizens, about 154,000 of them migrated to Germany in 2015, according to a study published in April by Germany's Friedrich Ebert Foundation. Of them, 32,000 applied for asylum.

Within hours of the attack,

#PrayForGermany and Afghan started trending. In many cities local trends, these were above

#RNCinCLE (the Republican National Convention) in many places across the world.

Jihadists calling for knife attacks in recent times:

As one of many posts on Twitter, ISIS supporters were celebrating this attack. Doesn't mean they necessarily are responsible for the attack:

But we don't know if it was ISIS who called for the attack:

Maybe they will claim responsibility:

Is the problem the influx of uncivilised Arabs?

2016 hasn't been a good year so far and there is hope that the second half of the year be better.

First published: 19 July 2016, 12:06 IST
 
Sahil Bhalla @IMSahilBhalla

Sahil is a sports and tech correspondent on the speed news desk at Catch. A gadget freak, he loves offering free tech support to family and friends. He studied at Sarah Lawrence College, New York and worked previously for Scroll. He selectively boycotts fast food chains, worries about Arsenal, and travels whenever and wherever he can. Sahil is an unapologetic foodie and a film aficionado.