TWO PEOPLE, INCLUDING a two-year-old boy, were killed and two others severely injured in a stabbing attack in Bavaria today, German police have said.

The German Chancellor has called for an explanation as to why the suspect had been allowed to remain in the country after an unsuccessful asylum claim. 

Police said a 28-year-old Afghan suspect was detained in the knife attack, which occurred in a park in the southern German town of Aschaffenburg at around 11:45 this morning.

The attacker targeted a group of children from a daycare centre who were in the park, according to German media.

Police told The Associated Press they did not immediately know the motive for the attack, because the investigation was still at an early stage.

It is the latest in a series of deadly knife attacks to have shaken Germany in recent months.

Train services in the town were temporarily interrupted as the suspect tried to flee along the tracks, German news agency dpa reported.

However, he was quickly detained, police wrote on the social media platform X.

They said the second victim who was killed was a 41-year-old man.

They did not know the nationality of the two people who were killed or release any details about those injured.

They also declined to give details about how the attack took place.

The governor of Bavaria condemned the attack and called it “a terrible day for all of Bavaria”.

“We mourn the victims of a cowardly and despicable act. We mourn the loss of a small, innocent child who was fatally injured,” Markus Soder wrote on X.

Rescue and security worker are seen near a crime scene in Aschaffenburg, Germany Alamy Stock Photo Alamy Stock Photo

“We mourn the loss of a helper who paid for his civil courage with his own life.”

“The circumstances of this inconceivable act must be fully clarified,” he added.

“But now is the time to pause for thought. It simply hurts. We pray for the victims and their families. We hope that all those injured recover quickly and fully.”

Germany’s Interior Minister Nancy Faeser expressed her compassion for the families of the victims and vowed that “the investigation will shed light on the background to this terrible act of violence”.

“My thoughts and heartfelt sympathy are with the parents of the child who was killed, for whom there could be no more terrible news,” she said.

“My deepest sympathy also goes to the family of the man who lost his life as a result of this brutal act.”

‘Consequences must follow’

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz condemned the deadly attack as “an unbelievable act of terror” and demanded to know why the Afghan suspect had been able to stay in the country.

Bavaria state interior minister Joachim Herrmann said the suspect had come to the attention of authorities for violent behaviour on three separate occasions.

“The authorities must explain as quickly as possible why the attacker was even still in Germany,” Scholz said in a statement reacting to the killing of a man and a child in Aschaffenburg.

The unnamed suspect had entered Germany in 2022 and unsuccessfully sought asylum and was meant to have left late last year, Herrmann told a press conference.

Scholz, who faces elections a month from now offered his sympathies to the victims’ families and two injured people.

“But that is not enough: I am sick of seeing such acts of violence occurring in our country every few weeks, by perpetrators who have actually come here to find protection here,” he added.

He said that “a false notion of tolerance is completely inappropriate here”.

Once authorities had worked out how the man had been allowed to remain in Germany, “consequences must follow immediately from the findings – words are not enough,” he said.

With reporting from AFP and Press Association