A vehicle ploughs into a gay pride event in Germany

**Will Chalk** (0:00)
This is The Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm Will Chalk, and in the early hours of Sunday, July the 26th, these are our main stories. A vehicle has ploughed into a crowd at a pride event in central Berlin, killing one person. At least 16 others were wounded. The authorities in southwest France have ordered around a quarter of a million people to evacuate as devastating forest fires continue to burn. Meanwhile, the Prime Minister of Spain, Pedro Sanchez, says firefighters are working to save lives as wildfires continue to blaze west of Madrid.
Also in this podcast.

**Myron Joshua** (0:41)
If I close my eyes and my life to what's going on here, I don't know if I'm contributing to the future. By living here, I have the naive feeling that I can hopefully be a thorn in the side of my co-settlers.

**Will Chalk** (0:54)
We hear from the Israeli volunteers meeting ill Palestinians at the border to drive them to hospital.
But we begin in the German capital where one person has been killed and several others left with life-threatening injuries after a vehicle drove into a crowd celebrating Berlin's Pride Parade. Julian Mifeg was there. He says it's a sad day for the queer community.

**Julian Mifeg** (1:21)
We have a beautiful pride today, and now it's a terrible situation. Yeah, it's very difficult for me.
I'm shocked.

**Will Chalk** (1:33)
Christopher Street Day, which is one of Europe's biggest annual LGBT events, has now been called off and the area cordoned off as well. We've seen videos showing people evacuating helicopters circling overhead as a manhunt continues for the driver who, we're told, fled the scene. We've heard from police as well. The suspect has been identified by them as a member of the city's Islamist circles.
The German Chancellor has vowed to punish the perpetrator for what he called this horrific act, while the mayor of Berlin said the city's freedom had come under attack. Joern Iflander from Berlin Police gave this update.

**Joern Iflander** (2:13)
According to the investigation, around 10pm, a vehicle entered the Tiergarten from the area of Lennenstrasse. Our officers are searching intensively for a possible suspect or suspects.
A large police presence is on the scene, and investigators are working to establish the circumstances.

**Will Chalk** (2:31)
I got more from the BBC's Michael Steininger, who's in Berlin.

**Michael Steininger** (2:36)
A van ran into a crowd of people at the edge of the large Tiergarten Park, which is in the center of Berlin, right next to the iconic Brandenburg Gate, where hundreds of thousands of people had gathered to celebrate the Berlin Pride March.
We think that that van injured at least a dozen of people. Police say possibly one dead, maybe more. We think that the driver left the car and fled on foot. So there's now a large manhunt underway. Police are looking with helicopters and with lots of forces using torchlights and floodlights to look for a possible, a potential perpetrator in the darkness of that large park, which is in the center of Berlin.

**Will Chalk** (3:27)
Yeah, I mean, Berlin is famous across Europe, isn't it, for its LGBT scene. I can only imagine that Berlin Pride is an absolutely massive event.

**Michael Steininger** (3:37)
That's right. I was in the city center myself today. And as usual, this day, every year, the city center is completely taken over by Revellous, by the queer community. There are lots of parties all over town.
People in garish dresses and very exotic attire are all over the place. Then they converge, they gather around the Bundaberg Gate in the late afternoon, early evening, when the party really takes off and when there's a concert, when there's floats, all kinds of things, entertainment. So I can only think that this was being a very, very abrupt and very, very horrible end to that kind of party.

**Will Chalk** (4:20)
Now we don't know the motive for this yet, and we're not here to speculate, obviously. But what we do know is that this is far from the first time in Germany that a car has driven into a crowd at a big event.

**Michael Steininger** (4:33)
It is not, and I think people are nervous about these events. The authorities are nervous about these events.
The area around the Brandenburg Gate had been caught off and secured for several days prior to this event already. But it's a very large area with lots of major roads converging on this particular point. So it is very hard to secure the whole area and basically make everyone safe. We did have several incidents in the recent past where cars were used to injure people, to kill people for whatever reasons. We had an incident not long ago in Leipzig. We famously two years ago had an incident where a man ran into a Christmas market in the city of Magdeburg in Eastern Germany and killed several people. So it is unfortunately not a new phenomenon.