A driver struck a crowd in southwest Germany on Monday, killing two people and seriously hurting several more, authorities said, adding that a 40-year-old German suspect was arrested at the scene.

Armed police shut down and evacuated the inner city of Mannheim after a car was driven through a pedestrian shopping area, with authorities saying they were working to determine the “perpetrator’s motivation”.

Two car ramming attacks in other German cities since December have killed eight people, while Mannheim was the scene of a stabbing attack at an anti-Islam rally last May that killed a policeman and wounded five other people.

Security was a major theme in last month’s general election, which was won by the centre-right CDU/CSU under Friedrich Merz.

The incident “is a stark reminder to us: we must do everything we can to prevent such crimes... Germany must become a safe country again,” Merz wrote on X.