A 50-year-old German train driver was attacked by a 15-year-old Afghan national at the Lauter train station in the state of Saxony in eastern Germany on Wednesday evening.
According to a local police report, the train driver attempted to intervene in settling a dispute between two passengers when he was set upon and severely beaten by two individuals.
Footage circulating on social media from another passenger on board the train showed the train driver being punched and kicked in the head as he lay on the ground next to the station platform before the two attackers fled the scene.
The victim was taken by paramedics to a local hospital for treatment, and the remaining passengers on board the train were transferred to a replacement rail service.
Federal police have not received an update as to the train driver’s condition.
Eyewitnesses provided authorities with a description of the attackers; one suspect was identified as a 15-year-old Afghan national. The second attacker has not been identified.
Both individuals remain at large after evading an extensive police search in the local area.
A police investigation into dangerous bodily harm has been opened and is ongoing.
Minors reach the age of criminal responsibility at the age of 14 in Germany, meaning the attacker could be prosecuted for committing a criminal offense if caught.
Bus drivers and train personnel have often been victims of attack in Germany, with migrants involved with a large number of such attacks. Last year, two Nigerians beat a German train conductor unconscious in the German city of Essen. In the same year, a German ticket inspector was stabbed by a Syrian migrant who had refused to buy a ticket.
An extremely high number of high-profile crimes have also occurred on German public transport. In January of this year, a Syrian was arrested for throwing a German schoolgirl on to train tracks in North Rhine-Westphalia.
Germany has suffered a spate of similar attacks and is evidence of a rising trend in victims being pushed onto train tracks in Germany. According to federal police statistics, 49 people were subject to such an attack in 2021, a sharp increase from the 29 cases recorded the previous year.
“This phenomenon is currently being noticed in many places in Germany,” stated a police note on the rise in attacks, as cited by German broadcaster Deutsche Welle (DW).
In recent years, 38 of the 65 known suspects involved in such attacks were not German nationals, reported DW, showing a disproportionate link between such attacks and migrant crime.
In 2018, a German-Iranian man went on a stabbing spree on a bus that injured nine people in the northern city of Lübeck.
