A planned father-son fishing weekend ended in disaster when Leon, 14, was attacked at the Freiburg train station in Germany by a 41-year-old Ethiopian migrant who tried to gouge the young boy’s eyes out. The father describes his son suffering serious psychological harm from the incident, including waking up every night screaming.
Leon had just stepped off a train from Heilbronn on Sept. 9 and was waiting on a staircase for his father, 54-year-old Roland H., when an Ethiopian man punched him in the face without warning. The blow knocked Leon’s head against a stone step and left him dazed.
The attacker then bent over him, reached for his eye and shouted, “I’ll kill you!”
Cafe owner, 46-year-old Pino R., said he saw the assault and intervened.
“I saw the boy sitting by the stairs. At that moment, I saw and heard the perpetrator running towards the boy shouting: ‘I’ll kill you,”‘ Pino R. told Bild newspaper.
He added, “Then, the man reached for the boy’s eye and threatened to tear out his eyeball. Then, I jumped on the attacker and pulled him down.”
Only then, Pino R. said, did he see that the man was holding a carpet knife. He called staff for help and alerted police.
Roland H. arrived shortly afterward and found his injured son on the stairs. Leon was taken to a hospital with injuries to his face and eye. Doctors diagnosed the victim with a jaw contusion and injuries to his eyes. According to the father, the boy additionally suffered from nausea and dizziness from the attack.
The father of Leon said that the injury on Leon’s cheek looks remarkably like a swastika, raising questions of whether the Ethiopian migrant tried to carve the symbol in the boy’s face.
“Thank God he missed the eye when he tried to grab it,” Roland H. said.
He credited the cafe owner with preventing a worse outcome.
“I am so grateful to Pino. He saved my son’s life,” said Roland.
The Federal Police Inspectorate Weil am Rhein confirmed an investigation is underway against a 41-year-old man from Ethiopia on suspicion of assault. Officers found pepper spray and a utility knife in the man’s pants pocket. The suspect allegedly told police he had mistaken the boy for someone else.
🇩🇪🔴 A migrant was awarded with German citizenship after stabbing this German comedian 5 times inside the Bremen central train station.
Nikita Miller expressed disbelief that the migrant who nearly killed him received German citizenship. Not only that, but he was released on the… pic.twitter.com/NcxMabWeIO
— Remix News & Views (@RMXnews) May 12, 2026The violent suspect has already been released.
Leon remains in pain and is taking painkillers. He is also receiving psychiatric treatment following the random attack.
“He is now very introverted and has said he will never take the train again,” his father said. “Since the attack, he wakes up every night screaming.”
Remix News reported this year that foreigners are responsible for 44 percent of all violent crime in German train stations, with violent crime doubling since 2020.
Specifically, the data shows there were 27,800 violent crimes in German train stations and on trains in 2025, a slight increase from the already very high 27,160 cases in 2024. The data also shows that 44 percent of all of these cases involved a foreigner in 2025, a slight decrease from the 46 percent recorded in 2024.
When the data was first released, AfD leader Weidel took to X to decry the rise in violence on German public transport.
“In 2025, the Federal Police recorded 27,819 violent crimes at train stations, with foreign suspects being significantly overrepresented, particularly in cases of sexual offenses and knife crimes. Under CDU leadership, the situation in Germany is worsening day by day. Only the AfD can provide a remedy,” she wrote.
