We will close this blog now.
Check back for updates today, or you can learn more about this story in our article here.
As we previously reported, a GoFundMe page was created to collect donations for the family of nine-year-old victim Andre Gleissner.
The page, created through a circle of family and friends, was first closed to donations after nearly 50,000 euros were raised.
But the organizer in a new update reported that it had reopened the donation page after receiving a flood of requests from the public.
They said Andre’s family is planning to pass on a large part of the donations to the other victims who died or were injured in the attack.
More than 70,000 euros have already been raised.
After the carnage at the Magdeburg Christmas market, there are now questions about whether something was missed.
Could they have arrested the man accused of killing five other people and injuring more than two hundred people?
These questions arise after it was revealed that Taleb A, as he is known in the German media, had already been reported to the authorities.
Read what our European correspondent Siobhan Robbins says below. . .
Heavily armed police will patrol the site of Friday’s attack.
A cordon remains in place while investigations continue.
Two days after the fatal attack, debris is strewn across the site in Magdeburg,
Police are monitoring the Christmas market, where a car plowed into a crowd celebrating the Christmas holidays on Friday night.
A damaged bar table still lies in front of the concrete barricades, next to a torn syringe wrapper and a fan.
The unused compression bandages that the paramedics brought are placed in a garbage bag.
Some belongings were left behind by market visitors, including a single black child’s glove and a beige hiking shoe.
A bloodied tissue is discarded on the ground.
A German investigative journalist said there were “a number of warnings” about suspect Taleb A before he killed five other people in this week’s attack.
Tim Roehn, head of investigations at Welt, told Sky News the suspect “not a stranger” and “had undergone this radicalization in plain sight”.
He said the alleged attacker had “gained some popularity as a critic of Islam” and an opponent of the Saudi regime, and had given interviews to mainstream media.
“Among all those statements, there are repeated messages that Germany would pay an enormous price because he and other secular Arabs have been betrayed, in his own words,” Roehn said.
“He talked about dying this year, he talked about taking revenge.
“It’s shocking to see what this user said publicly before this attack occurred. ”
Roehn said his team also discovered a “strange email” addressed to Berlin police, warning about Taleb A.
The person who sent the email was from Saudi Arabia and had warned the suspect was an “imminent danger”, the journalist said.
They had provided the police with their phone number and address, however, the email did not reach the police in Berlin, the German capital, but was mistakenly sent to a small town called Berlin, New JerseyArray in the United States.
It’s unclear whether the email was forwarded to German authorities or not.
Sky News has not noted the email and cannot independently determine the main points surrounding it.
Roehn said the German federal police investigated Taleb A a few months ago and pursued him.
However, they later decided he was not a threat and “left him alone”.
Two local fire brigades have paid tribute to Andre Gleissner, the nine-year-old killed in the attack.
The Schöppenstedt chimney brigade reported that Andre is a member of the Warle children’s chimney brigade.
He said the nine-year-old “left us too soon. ”
“Our minds are with Andrés’ loved ones, who we also want to help in this difficult time,” he said, sharing a call for donations.
The young firefighters of Lower Saxony also paid tribute to André, saying: “Our condolences go to his family, his friends and all his loved ones.
“We stand by their side in these difficult times and express our deepest sympathy.”
A German official has said police previously had contact with the suspect accused of driving into crowds at a Christmas market and killing five people.
Christian Pegel, interior minister for Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, said authorities have been looking for relevant information about the suspect, named in German media as Taleb A.
The 50-year-old, whose last trip is withheld under German law, stayed in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania between 2011 and January 2016.
Pegel said it was probably part of his education as a medical specialist.
The official then detailed two incidents in which the suspect had contact with police.
Suspect ‘made reference to Boston Marathon bombing’
In April 2023, Taleb A was charged with “disturbing public order by threatening to commit fraudulent acts. ”
Mr Pegel said it probably “in the context of a dispute with the Chamber of Physicians”, yet that the suspect had “threatened to do anything that would draw in foreign attention” and referred to the Boston Marathon bombing.
Three other people died in the 2013 attack when two homemade bombs exploded at the marathon finish line.
An arrest warrant was issued to search Taleb A’s apartment, but “no evidence of any kind involving genuine arrangements to commit such an act or evidence of Islamist tendencies was discovered. ”
The doctor said he would do whatever “people do for a long time. “
In a separate incident the following year, the suspect contacted a public authority in Stralsund asking for financial support for his living costs.
Mr Pegel said: “The data we have is that in seeking to obtain this funding, in trying to obtain his application, he said that he would take steps that would attract foreign attention and that other people would not forget for a long time. ”
A position was then taken with the suspect in a discussion about radicalization screening, which is used when police are surveilling a user who possibly poses a potential risk.
He was told at the time that authorities would be keeping an eye on him, Mr Pegel said.
A Saudi doctor reportedly drove his car to a busy Christmas market in the German city of Magdeburg on Friday night.
Four women and a nine-year-old boy died and another two hundred people were injured.
Here’s what we know about what happened.
How did it happen?
Shortly after 7pm, a dark-coloured BMW hire car barrelled into crowds gathered at the Magdeburg Christmas market.
Witnesses said they saw the car run toward other people near City Hall, zigzagging for about 400 meters.
Thi Linh Chi Nguyen, who works at a salon near the market, said she was on the phone during a break when she heard loud bangs that she thought were fireworks at first.
Then he saw a car speeding across the market.
People screamed and a child was thrown into the air by the vehicle, she said.
The 34-year-old recalled seeing the car bursting out of the market and turning right on to Ernst-Reuter-Allee street and then coming to a standstill at a tram stop where the suspect was arrested.
Who are the victims?
Police confirmed the victims were four women, ages 45, 52, 67 and 75, and a nine-year-old boy named Andre Gleissner.
Another two hundred people were injured, 41 of whom are in serious condition.
They are being treated in multiple hospitals in Magdeburg.
Who is the suspect?
Several German media outlets identified the suspect as Taleb A, 50, and revealed his last name, in accordance with German privacy laws.
He is said to have specialized in psychiatry and psychotherapy and to have lived in Germany since 2006.
The suspect, from Saudi Arabia, is under investigation for murder, attempted murder and assault and battery.
Social media posts apparently shared by the suspect describe him as a former Muslim.
He has anti-Muslim views and has been highly critical of German authorities, expressing support for the anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany (AfD) party.
People came here to pay their respects to those killed in this week’s attack in Magdeburg.
One of those who paid tribute to Constanze Schroete, who said she was “deeply shocked. ”
“It costs me dearly. I’m horrified that something like this could happen,” he said.
Schroete said it “makes no sense” how the attack could have been carried out despite the arrival of bollards and security measures.
Another mourner, Michael Klippel, said: “I think it’s bad. Our daughter messaged me Friday night and I thought she was there too.
“I was really shocked. I was exhausted. I was really shattered. This is incomprehensible. It’s incomprehensible.”