A driver drove a car into a labour union demonstration in central Munich on Thursday, injuring at least 28 people including children, authorities said.

Participants in a demonstration by the service workers’ union were walking along a street at about 10:30 a.m. when the car overtook a police vehicle following the gathering, accelerated and plowed into the back of the group, police said. 

Officers arrested the suspect after firing a shot at the car, deputy police chief Christian Huber said. He added that at least 28 people were believed to be injured, some of them seriously. 

A damaged Mini was seen at the scene, along with debris, including shoes. 

“We are praying for the victims — we hope very much that they all make it,” Bavarian Gov. Markus Söder told reporters at the scene.

Munich Mayor Dieter Reiter said that children were among those injured.

The suspect was a 24-year-old Afghan asylum seeker, Huber said. 

Bavaria’s state interior minister, Joachim Herrmann, confirmed the man was an asylum seeker. He said officials believe the protest was likely targeted at random. 

The state’s justice minister, Georg Eisenreich, said a prosecutors’ department that investigates extremism and terror was looking into the case. 

Attack likely not related to international conference

The incident follows a series of attacks involving immigrants in recent months that have pushed migration to the forefront of the campaign for Germany’s Feb. 23 election. 

Three weeks ago, a two-year-old boy and a man were killed in a knife attack in Aschaffenburg, also in Bavaria. An Afghan whose asylum application was rejected was the suspect in that attack.

That followed knife attacks in Mannheim and Solingen last year, in which the suspects were immigrants from Afghanistan and Syria, respectively. 

In a Christmas market car ramming in Magdeburg in December, the suspect was a Saudi doctor who had previously come to various regional authorities’ attention. 

Germany’s main opposition conservative bloc, in which Söder is a prominent figure, has demanded a tougher approach to irregular migration, calling for many more people to be turned back at the border and for an increase in deportations. 

Curbing migration is also a core issue for the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), which polls put in second place behind the conservatives. Other parties at the federal party have yet to be part of a coalition with AfD, which is under observation by the domestic intelligence agency for suspected right-wing extremism, allegations the party rejects.

‘A terrible attack’

Centre-left Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s government said it has already done a lot to reduce irregular migration, and that the opposition’s plans are incompatible with German and European Union law. 

Scholz described the latest incident as “a terrible attack.” 

“Anyone who commits crimes in Germany will not just be punished severely and have to go to prison, but must expect that he cannot continue his stay in Germany — and that also goes for countries that it is very difficult to send people back to,” he said. 

Scholz noted that his government deported convicted criminals to Afghanistan on a flight in August and is working to do so again — “and not just once, but continually.”

The Bavarian capital will see heavy security in the coming days because the three-day Munich Security Conference, an annual gathering of international foreign and security policy officials, opens on Friday.

Herrmann said authorities do not believe the car ramming was connected to the conference, but they still need to determine the motive.