Car drives into German carnival parade, several injured

[BERLIN] Ten people were injured on Monday after a car ploughed into a carnival parade in the western German town of Volkmarsen, police said, adding that the driver had been arrested.

Police declined to say if was an accident or if the driver had deliberately rammed the car into the crowd.

German news website HNA cited witnesses as saying that the driver appeared to have deliberately targeted children and that he had driven into the crowd "at full throttle."

The incident comes less than a week after a gunman killed 11 people, including himself, in one of the worst racist attacks in Germany since World War Two.

Police cars and ambulances rushed to the scene in Volkmarsen, 423 km west of Berlin.

Carnival is hugely popular in parts of western Germany, especially in Rhineland cities such as Cologne and Duesseldorf, where festivities peak on "Rose Monday" with tens of thousands attending street parades featuring comical or satirical floats.

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REUTERS