Police call off pride parade in Berlin and say several people have been injured

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A car drove into a crowd during Berlin’s famed LGBTQ+ parade on Saturday and injured several people, prompting police to call off the event in the German capital hours after it had begun.

Police said some of the victims had life-threatening injuries.

Germany Pride
People stand on the street following the cancellation of Christopher Street Day in Berlin (Fabian Sommer/dpa via AP)

Police, who did not say how many were injured, called on everyone in a post on X to leave the premises of the event immediately.

A short while later, police said a car had driven into the Tiergarten park, near the route of the pride march, hitting several people.

Police did not know how many officers had been deployed to the scene but that it was “definitely a lot of police”.

“We are conducting an intensive search for possible suspects,” a police officer said on a short video released on the Berlin police account on X.

While the exact number of injured people wasn’t immediately clear, police said that several people were severely injured, and that some of them suffered life-threatening injuries.

Firefighters and ambulances were out with many emergency staffers at the park to attend to the victims.

Hundreds of thousands of people had come to Berlin on Saturday to celebrate at Berlin’s pride parade, known in Germany as Christopher Street Day.

It’s one of Europe’s largest LGBTQ+ celebrations.

The pride event in front of the city’s iconic Brandenburg Gate in downtown was called off around 10.15pm and a band’s performance on stage was interrupted.

People were urged to go home and to avoid taking the route through the Tiergarten park.

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