German authorities have arrested an adult male asylum seeker from Eritrea who is believed to have murdered a 13-year-old schoolgirl and severely injured her 13-year-old friend during a stabbing rampage earlier this week near a ‘refugee’ housing facility in the tiny village of Illerkirchberg.
The pair of young girls, aged 13 and 14, had been walking on foot to catch their school bus at around 7:30 am on Monday, December 5th, in Illerkirchberg, a town of 4,000 inhabitants near the city of Ulm in the state of Baden-Württemberg, when the 27-year-old knife-wielding Eritrean asylum seeker began attacking them in a knife, the Berlin-based newspaper Junge Freiheit reports.
A male eyewitness, after hearing the screams of the victims, rushed over to assist the injured girls. “The girl was lying on the ground bleeding with a huge stab wound in her stomach. A second [girl] had injuries below the chest, a stab wound. She was completely devasted,” the man told the regional newspaper Südwestrundunk.
Police and emergency services arrived at the scene a short while later and rushed the two victims to the local hospital, where the 14-year-old subsequently succumbed to the injuries she sustained during the vicious attack. Hospital staff did, however, manage to treat the 13-year-old’s injuries, which were described by a police spokesman as serious but not life-threatening.
The perpetrator, for his part, fled from the scene of the murder to the nearby accommodation for asylum seekers, where he had been living. Shortly thereafter, the Special Police Unit (SEK) “searched [the residence]… and found three residents there, all of whom were asylum seekers from Eritrea,” the police said, adding that the 27-year-old alleged perpetrator was injured and required medical attention.
“Police also found a knife on [the suspect’s person], which is believed to be a murder weapon.” Authorities then transferred the alleged perpetrator to the hospital where he was placed under police guard.
The attack has left the slain teenager’s family utterly traumatized—so much so that they have been prescribed sedatives to help cope with the emotional agony of losing a child.
“It’s all so horrible, the parents have been given sedatives, they are said to have still been watching at her bedside in the clinic, but we all don’t know anything for sure yet,” a friend of the family of the deceased 14-year-old told Junge Freiheit.
Politicians from Germany, Belgium, and the Netherlands have also responded to the senseless killing.
Geert Wilders, the leader of the national anti-globalist Dutch Party for Freedom (PVV), shared the article on Twitter and added the hashtag “asylum stop.”
Tom Van Grieken, the leader of the Flemish national populist party Vlaams Belang, wrote: “The perpetrator appears to be an asylum seeker from Eritrea… Anyone surprised?”
German politicians from the conservative Alternative für Deutschland have also responded to the barbaric attack.
Tino Chrupalla, the co-leader of the party, said: “We must draw the right conclusions from this act and protect our children from such stabbing incidents!”
Alice Wiedel, the party’s second co-leader, accused left-liberal politicians of concealing the origin of the perpetrator. She criticized the fact that “acknowledging the reality, namely that we have a problem with certain men who have come to Germany as ‘refugees,’ is not okay.”
The co-leaders’ colleague, AfD MP Mariana Harder-Kühnel, wrote: “The state is dysfunctional. Every victim is one too many. Therefore: maximum punishment for murderers! Deport criminal migrants. Borders closed!”
Markus Häußler, the mayor of Illerkirchberg, told the German press that “the community is shocked. Meanwhile, one of the girls has died. We are all deeply affected and mourn with the family.”
The alleged perpetrator had first come to Germany as an ‘asylum seeker’ during the 2016 migrant crisis and has a residence permit until 2023.
This isn’t the first attack to have been carried out by migrants staying at the facility in Illerkirchberg. Previously, in 2019, a 14-year-old girl from the community was raped by four military-aged asylum seekers from Iraq and Afghanistan on Halloween night. Following their arrests and convictions, the Ulm Regional Court in March 2021 sentenced the men, aged between 17 and 26, to prison terms of just over two years each, the news portal T-Online reported.
