The mother of a nine-year-old boy killed in the German Christmas market attack has paid tribute to “my little teddy bear”.
Andre Gleissner was one of at least five people who died, while more than 200 others were injured when a car ploughed into crowds in Magdeburg on Friday evening.
His mother Desiree Gleissner said in a post on Facebook: “Let my little teddy bear fly around the world again… Andre didn’t do anything to anyone… He was only with us on earth for nine years… why you… why. I don’t understand.
“Now you are with grandma and grandpa in heaven. They missed you very much as we miss you here now.
“You will always live on in our hearts… I promise you that.”
A GoFundMe page set up to support Andre’s family raised nearly €50,000 (£41,500) before it was closed.
Franziska Helbich, a work colleague of his mum, wrote on the page Andre “was so looking forward to Christmas” but “will never be able to unwrap his presents”.
“With his cheerful smile and his zest for life, Andre leaves a big gap in the hearts of his family, friends and all those who knew him,” she said.
Organisers said in a later update that they had reopened the page for donations after receiving a flood of requests from the public, and that Andre’s family was planning to pass on a large part of the donations to the other victims who died or were injured in the attack.
‘We stand by their side’
German police have confirmed four women, aged 45, 52, 67 and 75, were also among those killed in the incident.
A 50-year-old suspect was remanded in custody after appearing before a judge on Saturday evening.
Two local fire brigades paid tribute to Andre, with the Schoppenstedt fire department saying he was a member of the children’s fire brigade in Warle.
“Our thoughts are with Andrés’ relatives, who we also want to support during this difficult time,” it said, sharing a donation appeal.
The Lower Saxony youth fire brigade also paid tribute to Andre, saying: “Our condolences go out to his family, his friends and everyone who was close to him.
“We stand by their side in these difficult times and express our deepest sympathy.”
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2:46
Magdeburg attack: A timeline of what happened
Authorities received tip-offs about suspect
The suspect has been named by German media as Taleb A, with his surname being withheld in line with privacy laws, although the name has not been confirmed by German authorities.
He is a Saudi citizen who worked as a doctor and arrived in Germany in 2006, premier of Saxony-Anhalt state Reiner Haseloff said.
He is being investigated for five counts of suspected murder and 205 counts of suspected attempted murder, prosecutor Horst Walter Nopens said.
It comes as the head of the Federal Criminal Police Office, Holger Munch, said in an interview on the German broadcaster ZDF that his office received a tip-off from Saudi Arabia in November 2023.
He said the tip-off led authorities to launch “appropriate investigative measures”, but that the information proved to be very unspecific.
Germany’s Federal Office for Migration and Refugees also said it had received a warning about the suspect last summer.
“This was taken seriously, like every other of the numerous tips,” the office said on X on Saturday.
It also noted that it is not an investigative authority and that it referred the information to the responsible authorities.
Meanwhile, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania’s state interior minister, Christian Pegel, said that the suspect originally lived in the region, where he completed his specialist training.
Mr Pegel also said the suspect came to the attention of authorities due to threatening criminal acts, when, in a dispute over the recognition of examination results, he threatened members of the state medical association with an act that “would attract international attention”.
The comments triggered an investigation and a search of his home, the dpa news agency reported, citing Mr Pegel, however, no evidence was found of real preparations for an attack.
A court found him guilty in 2013 of threatening an attack.
‘Moment of solidarity’
A memorial service was held for the victims in the city’s cathedral on Saturday evening, with Chancellor Olaf Scholz, interior minister Nancy Faeser and German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier in attendance.
The cathedral bells tolling at 7.04pm local time (6.04pm UK time), exactly 24 hours after the attack.
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Memorial service held for Magdeburg attack victims
Syria’s de facto leader has reached an agreement with the heads of rebel factions to dissolve their groups and work under the country’s defence ministry, his new administration says.
Ahmed al Sharaa, the head of the Hayat Tahrir al Sham (HTS) group which toppled Bashar al Assad‘s regime earlier this month, met with the leaders of several of the rival factions that have been vying for influence in the country for years in the Syrian capital Damascus.
Those in attendance said their groups would dissolve, according to a statement from the new government.
The statement did not make clear which groups attended, but Syria has factions made up of Muslim Kurds and Shi’ites, as well as Syriac, Greek and Armenian Orthodox Christians, and the Druze community.
However, one major group, the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), did not join the meeting in Damascus and has not agreed to dissolve.
It comes as Al Sharaa attempts to end years of civil strife and armed conflict – with the leader telling Western officials that his new government will not seek revenge against the former regime nor repress any religious minority.
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3:15
What can Syrians expect from HTS?
SDF launches fresh counter-offensive as fighting continues
Despite many groups agreeing to dissolve, fighting continues in the north of Syria.
The SDF, which in 2021 was estimated to have some 100,000 members, is not one of the groups set to dissolve and fall under the Syrian defence ministry.
On Tuesday it announced it had instead launched a fresh counter-offensive against the Turkish-backed Syrian National Army (SNA) to take back areas it previously controlled near Syria’s northern border.
Clashes between the SDF and the SNA have intensified since the fall of the Assad regime at the start of the month, and the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights says dozens from both sides have been killed.
The SDF is one of the US’s key allies in the country, and is frequently used by Washington to counter a resurgence of the so-called Islamic State in Syria.
The SNA, which helped topple the Assad regime, capitalised on the fall of the previous government by quickly launching an offensive and capturing the key city of Manbij and the areas surrounding it.
Since Monday and following overnight fighting, the SDF has recaptured some villages and is just seven miles from the centre of Manbij, according to reports from commanders and rights groups.
Hundreds of people have protested in Christian areas of the Syrian capital of Damascus after a video emerged showing hooded fighters setting a Christmas tree on fire elsewhere in the country.
“We demand the rights of Christians,” demonstrators chanted as they marched through the city on Christmas Eve.
The overthrow of Bashar al Assad by rebels led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) – a group once aligned with Al Qaeda – has sparked concerns for religious minorities in Syria, but the group’s leader has insisted that all faiths will be respected.
The protests erupted after a video spread on social media showing fighters torching a Christmas tree in the Christian-majority town of Suqaylabiyah, near the city of Hama.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported that the men were foreigners from the Islamist group Ansar al Tawhid.
A demonstrator who gave his name as Georges said he was protesting “injustice against Christians”.
“If we’re not allowed to live our Christian faith in our country, as we used to, then we don’t belong here anymore,” he said.
A religious leader from HTS, the leading rebel group in the coalition that toppled Assad, claimed that those who set the tree on fire were “not Syrian” and promised they would be punished.
“The tree will be restored and lit up by tomorrow morning”, he said.
A Russian cargo ship that Ukraine claims was sent to Syria to collect weapons has sunk in the Mediterranean Sea, according to officials in Moscow.
Two crew members are missing after an engine room explosion sank the Ursa Major between Spain and Algeria, the foreign ministry said. Fourteen other crew were rescued and taken to Spain.
Ukraine’s military intelligence claimed yesterday that the ship, previously called Sparta III, had been sent to Syria to remove weapons and military equipment after the fall of Bashar al Assad.
In a post on Telegram, the agency said the ship broke down near Portugal but the crew were able to “fix the problem and continue through the Strait of Gibraltar”.
It shared a picture of Sparta III, though referred to the ship in the statement as Sparta. There is another Russian ship in the Mediterranean called Sparta, so it is not fully clear which vessel the agency was referring to.
Ship tracking data from the London Stock Exchange Group (LSEG) shows the Ursa Major departed from the Russian port of St Petersburg on 11 December. It was last seen sending a signal at 10.04pm GMT on Monday between Algeria and Spain.
On leaving St Petersburg it had indicated that its next port of call was the Russian port of Vladivostok.
The operator and owner of the ship is a company called SK-Yug, part of shipping and logistics company Oboronlogistics, according to LSEG data.
Assad fled to Moscow from Syria earlier this month after rebels captured the capital of Damascus in a lightning offensive that brought his family’s five-decade rule to an end.
The Kremlin has long been an ally of Assad, who gave Vladimir Putin a Mediterranean seaport and a nearby air base in Syria in return for military support during the country’s civil war, which began in 2011.
Four years later, Russia intervened directly in the civil war and launched its first airstrikes in the country after Islamic State fighters seized the historic city of Palmyra. This proved to be a turning point in the conflict.
A year later, Syrian troops, backed by Russia and Iran, recaptured Aleppo – a significant blow to the rebels.
But in recent weeks Russia has been pulling back its military from the frontlines in northern Syria and the removal of Assad has also thrown the future of Moscow’s bases in the country – the Hmeimim airbase in Latakia and the Tartous naval facility – into question.