One person was killed and 17 others were injured after a vehicle drove into a crowd near Berlin’s Christopher Street Day Pride celebrations on Saturday evening, prompting a major police operation and a search for the suspected perpetrator.

The incident happened at around 10 p.m. local time in the Tiergarten park near the Brandenburg Gate, according to Berlin police. The vehicle struck several people before crashing into a tree and coming to a stop.

Police said the vehicle was found empty after the crash and that officers launched a search for one or more people believed to be responsible.

Eight of the injured people suffered serious injuries, while three were in life-threatening condition, according to Berlin’s fire brigade.

Police later said they had identified a suspected perpetrator but had not yet arrested him. Authorities described the suspect as being known to police as part of Berlin’s Islamist scene. Investigators continued efforts to locate and detain him.

Authorities described the vehicle as white and said it could have been a car, minivan or minibus. German tabloid Bild, citing a witness, reported that the vehicle was a van and that a man reportedly got out and fled on foot.

Hundreds of thousands of people had gathered in Berlin for the annual Christopher Street Day celebrations before the incident brought the festivities to an abrupt end. A large emergency response was deployed around the scene as police and medical teams treated victims.

Julian Miethig, who attended the Pride event, described the incident as a deeply shocking moment for the LGBTQ community.

Christopher Street Day, commonly known as CSD, is one of Berlin’s largest annual public events. It commemorates the 1969 Stonewall uprising in New York and features a major parade alongside political, cultural and community events focused on equality, inclusion and protection from discrimination.

The Berlin event was first held in West Berlin in 1979 and has since developed into a major part of the city’s cultural and political calendar. The Pride parade is its central event, attracting hundreds of thousands of participants and spectators each year.

The incident comes after a series of vehicle attacks in Germany in recent years in which cars were driven into groups of pedestrians.

In May, a man believed by authorities to have mental health problems drove into a pedestrian area in Leipzig, killing two people and seriously injuring three others. In Mannheim last year, a 40-year-old man drove into pedestrians, killing two people and seriously injuring others.

Earlier, an Afghan national was suspected by prosecutors of driving into a trade union demonstration in Munich, killing two people and injuring more than 40, including children.

In December 2024, a vehicle attack at a Christmas market in Magdeburg also killed several people. The suspect was a Saudi Arabian psychiatrist who had lived in Germany for many years and had publicly expressed anti-Islamic views.

Investigators were continuing to establish the circumstances of the Berlin incident, while authorities searched for the suspected attacker and worked to determine the motive.

SOURCE: Reuters, Kirsti Knolle, Michele Sani, Martin and Schlicht, July 25–26, 2026.