Germany knife attack on children reignites pre-vote migrant debate

A deadly knife attack on a play school group in Germany, where an Afghan man was arrested at the scene, reignited a bitter immigration debate on Thursday, a month before elections.

Germany was stunned by the latest in a series of bloody attacks, in which a man wielding a kitchen knife on Wednesday stabbed young children in a park in the Bavarian city of Aschaffenburg.

He killed a two-year-old Moroccan boy and a 41-year-old German man who had tried to protect the children, and wounded three others, among them a Syrian girl also aged two who sustained neck wounds.

The 28-year-old Afghan suspect -- partially named by German media as Enamullah O. and with a history of mental health troubles, according to officials -- on Thursday was transferred to a closed psychiatric institution.

Following the attack, the conservative frontrunner in the February 23 polls, Friedrich Merz, vowed a "fundamental" overhaul of asylum rules and permanent border controls from day one, if elected to power.

His ally, Bavarian state premier Markus Soeder, called the attack on the toddlers "the most despicable and horrific crime you can imagine" and praised the heroism of the passer-by who died trying to protect the children.

Following the attack, officials said that the Afghan man should have been sent back long ago to his first EU country of entry, Bulgaria.

The under-fire government of centre-left Chancellor Olaf Scholz denied blame but agreed that the current EU rules on managing asylum requests "no longer work".

Shocked and bereaved residents congregated on Thursday as city mayor Juergen Herzing laid a wreath in memory of the victims of the attack, which he said would be "engraved in the memory of the whole city".

He condemned those spreading "messages of hate without a word of regret for the injured and dead" but voiced hope that his city's people "will stick together".

'Mentally disturbed'

Scholz had condemned the "unbelievable act of terror" before Merz on Thursday went on the offensive over the government's record on immigration and security.

"I am no longer willing to accept these conditions in Germany," said Merz, who heads the conservative CDU-CSU party and has a strong poll lead.

"Under my leadership, there will be fundamental changes to immigration law, asylum law and the right of residence in Germany," he said.

Merz added that, unlike Scholz, he did not see the attack as an "act of terror", but rather "as the criminal act of an obviously drug-dependent and mentally disturbed perpetrator".

On his first day as chancellor, he would instruct the interior ministry to "reject without exception all attempts at illegal entry", he said.

"This also explicitly applies to persons entitled to protection," he added, slamming the EU's current asylum system, known as the Dublin rules, as "recognisably dysfunctional".

"Germany must therefore exercise its right to the primacy of national law."

Interior Minister Nancy Faeser said that in the Afghan man's case, "Bulgaria was responsible for the asylum procedure under European law", and conceded that "the Dublin system no longer works".

She also pointed out that Germany had in the past sent back violent criminals to Taliban-ruled Afghanistan.

"We are working intensively to deport more criminals" to Kabul, she said.

Series of attacks

Officials have said that the Afghan suspect arrived in Germany in 2022, where he requested asylum, and that he later agreed to leave the country but never did.

Bavarian interior minister Joachim Herrmann said that police who searched the suspect's room at an asylum centre found psychiatric medications but no evidence "of a radical Islamist attitude".

Germany has been shaken by a series of deadly attacks, including a car-ramming through a Christmas market that killed five people and wounded more than 200, with a Saudi man arrested at the scene in Magdeburg.

A knife attack last August killed three people and wounded eight in Solingen. The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the stabbing spree and police arrested a Syrian suspect.

Scholz insisted that the blame for the latest attack lay with the Bavarian authorities, whom he said had not properly implemented existing policies.

"We have ensured that there are many options for returning someone who cannot stay here, but there is clearly a significant enforcement deficit," he said.