Germany: Three Dead After Improvised Fireworks Blasts · Global Voices

Their lives were lost by three people in Germany in the last few hours after blasts of improvised fireworks due to the change of year. Since Tuesday afternoon (31.12.2024) reinforced police and firefighting forces throughout Germany were on hand to safeguard planned events for the change of year, but also fireworks. DEPENDENCE In the Geseke region of Northern Rhineland- Westphalian 24-year-old was fatally injured by an explosion of improvised blast. According to police, the young man was with friends on the outskirts of the city and tried to detonate fireworks he had made himself. In a similar incident, 45-year-old man in Osats, Saxony was killed when he detonated a large-scale firework – F4 class bomb. The man was heavily injured in the head and later succumbed to the hospital. Twenty-year-old lost his life in an illegal bomb blast in Hamburg. CORVERSE Up to now, at least 8 other injuries in similar cases have been known. Tens of thousands of policemen and firefighters were from early in the afternoon on foot, mainly in major German cities, in order to safeguard planned events for the change of year. In Berlin more than 4,000 police officers and 1,500 firefighters were deployed, while in the streets of North Rhine-Westphalia- Westphalia are 7,500 police officers. In Berlin, where attacks against security forces and rescue crew members have in recent years turned into a – alarming – tradition, a 13-year-old was arrested, who threw a firecracker at police officers, and a 24-year-old, who made improvised fireworks. Police moved earlier on to an accelerated removal of the attendees at Alexander Platz, where members of the police pursued and arrested an armed man. In Leipzig, hundreds of people gathered on the tram tracks and attacked police officers, against whom they launched firecrackers. In Hamburg, a bomb blast caused a fire in a hangar in the under construction mosque extension in the Bilstead area. Frankfurt police appealed through X for “cognition”, reporting on “isolated incidents” injuries from the use of illegal fireworks. Head of the Federal Police Association (GdP) Johann Kopelke again called for the ban on firecrackers “in order to improve the security situation on the night of the change of year” and blamed the federal interior ministry for rejecting the recommendations on this and transferring responsibility to the federal states. To ban improvised fireworks and firecrackers have also requested medical clubs, animal and environmental organisations. In Berlin, however, about 65,000 people gathered at the Brandenburg Gate to celebrate the change of year, under the sounds of Serin’s rap music concert David and Ski Agu.