Berlin’s annual Christopher Street Day Pride parade was called off on Saturday evening after a car drove into a crowd of people near the route, leaving several injured and prompting a major emergency response in the German capital.
The incident occurred in the city’s central Tiergarten park, close to the landmark Brandenburg Gate, where a vehicle struck multiple people who had gathered for one of Europe’s largest LGBTQ celebrations. Emergency services and police were deployed to the scene as organisers moved to halt the march.
“We are searching intensively for suspects,” Berlin police said in a statement posted to social media, confirming that an intensive manhunt was under way in the hours following the crash.
Hundreds of thousands of people had gathered peacefully in Berlin for the event, which commemorates the 1969 Stonewall uprising and typically draws vast crowds through the heart of the city. The area around the Tiergarten was cordoned off as authorities treated the injured.
The precise circumstances of the incident remained unclear in the immediate aftermath, and authorities did not initially confirm whether it was intentional or an accident. The number and severity of injuries had not been officially detailed.
Vehicle attacks on crowds have raised security concerns across European cities in recent years, and large public gatherings routinely draw heightened police protection. Berlin authorities had deployed a significant security presence for the parade before the incident forced its cancellation.
The disruption echoes wider tensions surrounding major public demonstrations in Europe, where authorities have faced repeated challenges managing large-scale events, as seen in recent crowd-control operations in other European capitals.
Organisers urged remaining attendees to leave the area calmly and follow instructions from emergency personnel. Investigators are expected to release further details as the search for those responsible continues and the condition of the injured becomes clearer.