Terrorist attack at huge Berlin Pride parade celebration leaves 1 dead, dozens injured

A woman was killed, and 29 people were injured Saturday night when a vehicle drove into a crowd near Berlin’s Pride celebration, in what German officials are investigating as a suspected Islamist terrorist attack.

Authorities were searching Sunday for a 21-year-old suspect publicly identified as Abdul B., according to the German news program Tagesschau. Police warned that he may be armed and dangerous and urged the public not to approach him.

“Everything we see here indicates that we are dealing with an Islamist terrorist attack,” German Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt told reporters. Federal prosecutors, who handle terrorism and national security cases, have taken over the investigation. Officials had not established whether the attacker selected the crowd because of its connection to Berlin’s Christopher Street Day, the name commonly used for Pride celebrations in Germany.

Related: LGBTQ+ Pride Month events could be targets of foreign terrorists, security officials warn

Pride celebration becomes a crime scene

The attack occurred shortly before 10 p.m. near the Tiergarten, a sprawling park in central Berlin, as Saturday’s Christopher Street Day events were ending. Hundreds of thousands of people had marched earlier under the slogan “Taking a stand is hot.”

Armed police stand near the scene where one person was killed and around 16 injured after a car struck people on the outskirts of the Christopher Street Day (CSD) parade in Berlin, on July 25, 2026. RALF HIRSCHBERGER / AFP via Getty Images

According to Tagesschau, a white vehicle traveled along a path through the park, striking several people before crashing into a tree. The driver then fled. Investigators were also examining reports that some victims were attacked with a bladed weapon. Several people were initially reported to have life-threatening injuries, though officials said Sunday that none of the surviving victims remained in immediate danger of dying. At least 30 witnesses received psychological care, Tagesschau reported.

The woman who was killed had not been publicly identified.

Related: 2 Homophobic Assaults Reported After Berlin's Pride Celebrations

Police hunt suspect with alleged extremist ties

Police said the suspect was known to law enforcement and associated with Berlin’s Islamist scene. Tagesschau, citing German broadcasters NDR and WDR and the newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung, reported that security officials had considered him potentially violent.

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz gives a press statement on July 26, 2026 in front of the Marienkirche church in Berlin and with Berlin's city Hall (Rotes Rathaus) in the background (R), about the deadly car-ramming attack in the Tiergarten park that left one woman dead and 29 other people injured on the sidelines of the Christopher Street Day (CSD) parade the evening before.John MACDOUGALL / AFP via Getty Images

He had allegedly attempted to travel to Syria to join the Islamic State terrorist organization, according to Tagesschau. Authorities had not captured him as of Sunday. It also remained unclear whether others participated in the attack. Witness accounts differed over how many people left the vehicle, and police searched an apartment without locating the suspect.

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz condemned the violence as an “abhorrent act.” Berlin Mayor Kai Wegner called it an “attack on our free and cosmopolitan society.”

Related: Terrorist Attack on Vienna Pride Parade Thwarted

LGBTQ+ communities face persistent violence

Pride celebrations are both festivals and declarations that LGBTQ+ people have a right to occupy public space openly. That visibility has also made the events and the communities surrounding them targets of intimidation and violence. Berlin’s Christopher Street Day traces its lineage to the 1969 Stonewall uprising in New York, when LGBTQ+ patrons resisted a police raid and helped ignite the modern LGBTQ+ rights movement.

People hug during a demonstration on July 26, 2026 on Pariser Platz in front of landmark Brandenburg Gate during a so-called "community mourning" one day after the car ramming attack on people on the outskirts of Berlin's Christopher Street Day (CSD) parade on late July 25, 2026, killing one person and injuring 16 in the Tiergarten park. RALF HIRSCHBERGER / AFP via Getty Images

German authorities recorded 2,070 politically motivated crimes connected to sexual orientation in 2025, including 284 violent crimes, according to figures cited by the Lesbian and Gay Federation in Germany. Authorities separately recorded 1,294 offenses related to gender diversity, including 112 violent crimes. The categories can overlap.

Right-wing extremism accounted for the largest identifiable ideological share of those offenses, though authorities also recorded attacks connected to religious and foreign ideologies. Across Europe, 14 percent of LGBTQ+ respondents said they had been physically or sexually attacked during the previous five years, according to a survey of more than 100,000 people by the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights. More than half reported anti-LGBTQ+ harassment during the previous year.

The agency and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe have warned that official figures likely understate the problem because victims may distrust police or fear disclosing their sexual orientation or gender identity.

Europe has seen other deadly attacks on LGBTQ+ spaces. In 2022, a gunman opened fire near the London Pub, a center of Oslo’s queer community, on the morning of the city’s Pride parade. Two people were killed, and more than 20 were injured. That year, an extremist motivated by anti-LGBTQ+ hatred killed two people outside a queer bar in Bratislava, Slovakia.

A mourner places flowers on July 26, 2026 in front of landmark Brandenburg Gate during to a so-called "community mourning" one day after the car ramming attack on people on the outskirts of Berlin's Christopher Street Day (CSD) parade on late July 25, 2026, killing one person and injuring 16 in the Tiergarten park. RALF HIRSCHBERGER / AFP via Getty Images

In the United States, a gunman killed 49 people at Pulse, a gay nightclub in Orlando, in 2016. Six years later, another gunman killed five people and injured 19 at Club Q in Colorado Springs, Colorado.

FBI data show that sexual orientation bias accounted for 17.2 percent of victims in reported single-bias hate crimes in 2024. Gender identity bias accounted for another 3.9 percent.

On Sunday, thousands of people came to a public mourning event in Berlin, where they proved that even acts of violence will not deter progress and acceptance.