The Japan Times - Afghan held after suspected ramming attack injures 28 in Germany

The incident comes on the eve of a high-profile international conference in Munich and amid an election campaign in which immigration and security have been key issues after a spate of similar attacks.

A passenger car drove into a street demonstration of striking workers from the Verdi trade union near the city centre and was then shot at by officers, said the deputy head of Munich police Christian Huber.

The driver, a 24-year-old Afghan asylum seeker, was arrested at the scene, Huber said.

Earlier a fire service spokesman told AFP that several of those hurt were "seriously injured, some of them in a life-threatening condition".

The state premier of Bavaria Markus Soeder told a press conference that the incident was "just terrible" and that "it looks like this was an attack".

Soeder's Bavarian CSU party and its national sister party the CDU have demanded tougher curbs on migration after a series of similar attacks which have shocked the country.

"This is not the first incident... we must show determination that something will change in Germany," Soeder said. "This is further proof that we can't keep going from attack to attack."

- Inflamed debate -

The ground at the scene of the incident was littered with items including glasses, shoes, thermal blankets and a pushchair.

Eyewitness Alexa Graef said she was "shocked" after seeing the car drive into the crowd "which looked deliberate".

"I hope it's the last time I see anything like that," she said.

An eyewitness who was among the striking workers told the local BR42 website that he "saw a person lying under the car" after it drove into the crowd.

The president of the Verdi union Frank Werneke said in a statement: "We are deeply upset and shocked at the awful incident during a peaceful demonstration by our Verdi colleagues."

The incident comes a day before the city is due to host the high-profile Munich Security Conference.

US Vice President JD Vance and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky are among those arriving on Thursday to attend the two-day security meet.

The latest suspected attack comes amid an already inflamed debate on immigration after several similar incidents, most recently in the Bavarian city of Aschaffenburg last month.

Two people were killed in a knife attack including a two-year-old child.

After that attack a 28-year-old Afghan man was arrested whom authorities say has a history of mental illness.

In December, six people were killed after a car ploughed into a Christmas market in the eastern city of Magdeburg, also wounding hundreds.

A Saudi man was arrested after that attack, with Interior Minister Nancy Faeser saying he also appeared to be mentally disturbed.

K.Tanaka--JT