Three people were killed and eight injured in an attack in the western town of Solingen, Germany, on Friday, August 23rd, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has said. "This was terrorism, terrorism against us all," Mr Scholz said during a visit to Solingen on Monday. The alleged attacker - named as 26-year-old Issa Al H. - is suspected of links to the terror organisation Islamic State. The Syrian man, Issa, who came to Germany as an asylum seeker was charged
The attack occurred at a celebratory service to mark the 650th anniversary of the city of Solingen.
Top representatives of the two major churches have reacted with dismay to the attack in Solingen, in which three people were killed and eight injured on Friday evening. "This unrestrained violence cannot be justified in any way," said a joint statement issued on Saturday by the current chair of the Council of the Evangelical Church in Germany (EKD), Kirsten Fehrs, and the chairman of the Catholic German Bishops' Conference, Georg Bätzing.
The President of the Evangelical Church in the Rhineland, Thorsten Latzel, and the Archbishop of Cologne, Rainer Maria Woelki, also expressed their horror at the bloody act.
"The inhuman attack in Solingen leaves us speechless and shocked us deeply," said Fehrs and Bätzing. "The act in Solingen lets us look into an abyss of evil and our sympathy goes out to all those who have to mourn the loss of human life," they continued. The two highest representatives of Catholics and Protestants in Germany thanked the police, rescue workers and emergency chaplains who are standing by the people of Solingen.
Cologne Cardinal Woelki was also stunned and deeply saddened. "My prayers are with the victims and their families in these difficult hours," he explained. "But I am also thinking of all the people of Solingen who met for a peaceful celebration and are now left shocked and full of unanswered questions."
Source: Domradio.de
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