<div style="text-align: justify; "><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">An attacker with a knife killed three people and seriously wounded at least five late Friday at a festival in the western German city of Solingen, authorities said.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Witnesses alerted police shortly after 9:30 p.m. to an unknown attacker having wounded several people indiscriminately with a knife on a central square, the Fronhof. Police said the perpetrator was on the run, and they had only very little information on the man so far.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">They said they believe the stabbings were carried out by a lone attacker.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">One of the festival organizers, Philipp Müller, appeared on stage and asked festivalgoers to “go calmly; please keep your eyes open, because unfortunately the perpetrator hasn't been caught.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">He said many people had been wounded by “a knifeman.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">At least one helicopter was seen in the air, while many police and emergency vehicles with flashing blue lights were on the road and several streets were closed off.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Police put the number of seriously injured at five. The region's top security official, Herbert Reul, gave a figure of six as he visited the scene in the early hours of Saturday.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">“None of us knows why” the attack took place, said Reul, who is the interior minister of North Rhine-Westphalia state.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">“I can't say anything about the motive now” and it isn't clear who the assailant was, he said, but the attacker left the scene “relatively quickly.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Mayor Tim Kurzbach said in a Facebook post, “This evening, we in Solingen are all in shock. We all wanted to celebrate our city’s anniversary together and now have dead and wounded to lament.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">“It breaks my heart that an attack on our city happened,” he added.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Local newspaper Solinger Tageblatt quoted Celine Derikartz, its reporter covering the festival, as saying that “the atmosphere is spooky.” She said a party atmosphere had turned to shock within minutes and she saw festivalgoers weeping.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The “Festival of Diversity,” marking the city’s 650th anniversary, began Friday and was supposed to run through Sunday, with several stages in central streets offering attractions such as live music, cabaret and acrobatics.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The city canceled the rest of the festival after the attack. Solingen has about 160,000 residents and is located near the bigger cities of Cologne and Duesseldorf.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">There has been concern about an increase in knife violence in Germany recently.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In May, a knife attack by an Afghan immigrant on members of a group that describes itself as opposing “political Islam” left a police officer dead.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Germany's top security official, Interior Minister Nancy Faeser, proposed toughening weapons laws to allow only knives with a blade measuring up to 6 centimeters (nearly 2.4 inches) to be carried in public, rather than the length of 12 centimeters (4.7 inches) that is allowed now.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify; ">bnbd24/kh</div>