Germany: Syrian Refugee Denied Asylum Commits Suicide In Bomb Blast
A Syrian man who had been denied asylum in Germany a year ago died on Sunday when a bomb he was carrying exploded outside a music festival in Ansbach.
Bavaria’s Interior Minister Joachim Hermann said the 27-year-old man detonated a backpack device after being refused entry to the festival in the southern city.
“We don’t know at the moment, if the perpetrator just wanted to commit suicide or if his goal was also to kill other people. We will do everything possible to clear the background and the reasons of this episode, and the motives of the attacker,” said the minister.
About 2,500 people who had been attending the festival had to be evacuated while armed officers temporarily sealed off Ansbach city centre.
Twelve people were also injured in the blast, three of them are said to be in a serious condition.
“At the beginning I heard rumors that it was a gas explosion, but then suddenly people ran, someone said a backpack exploded. Definitely someone blew himself up,” said one witness.
It is the third attack in the state of Bavaria in a week.
A shooting rampage in Munich on Friday left nine dead while an axe-wielding teenager was shot dead after injuring four people on a train a week ago in Wuerzburg.
Sunday also saw a machete attack In Reutlingen in which one woman died.
Police have said neither Sunday’s machete attack nor Friday’s shooting in Munich bore any sign of connections with Daesh or other militant groups.