Knife attacker in Germany kills two, including child - police

BERLIN — A 41-year-old man and a two-year-old boy were killed and two other people severely wounded in a knife attack in the German city of Aschaffenburg on Wednesday, police said.

A 28-year-old man from Afghanistan was arrested close to the crime scene, they said on social media platform X, without indicating a motive.

The stabbings happened in a public park in the centre of the Bavarian city at around 11:45 am (1045 GMT).

"Two people were fatally injured," police said, while "two seriously injured people are receiving treatment in hospital.

"The suspect was arrested in the immediate vicinity of the crime scene."

A second person arrested was a witness and was being questioned, police said 

"There are no indications of other suspects" and no further danger to the public, police said.

Police said investigations into the "background of the crime" were ongoing.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz condemned a deadly knife attack Wednesday as "an unbelievable act of terror" and demanded to know why the Afghan suspect had been able to stay in the country.

Bavaria state interior minister Joachim Herrmann said the suspect had come to the attention of authorities for violent behaviour on three separate occasions.

"The authorities must explain as quickly as possible why the attacker was even still in Germany," Scholz said in a statement reacting to the killing of a man and a child in Aschaffenburg.

Police had cordoned off the park in Aschaffenburg, around 36 kilometres (22 miles) southeast of Frankfurt.

Germany has been shaken by a series of deadly stabbings in recent months.

Three people were killed and eight wounded in a stabbing spree at a street festival in the western city of Solingen in August. 

The attack was claimed by the Islamic State group and police arrested a Syrian suspect.

The presumed Islamist motive behind that stabbing fuelled a bitter debate in Germany over immigration.

The government responded to the incident by tightening controls on knives and strengthening security services with new powers of investigation.