Solingen stabbings: what we know so far

A manhunt is under way after three people were killed in a mass stabbing at a festival in Solingen in Germany on Friday night.

Here is what we know so far:

• A 15-year-old has been arrested in connection to an attack that killed three people and injured eight at a diversity festival in the western German city of Solingen, police said.

• Terrorism has not been ruled out as a motive. The prosecutor Markus Caspers said police were looking at terror as a possibility, saying there was no other obvious motive and that the attacker appeared to be unknown to the victims.

• It is not known if the 15-year-old was the attacker. German media have reported that the teenager is suspected of speaking to the attacker before the incident.

• The three people killed were two men, 67 and 56, and a woman, 56.

• Eight others were injured, four are fighting for their lives, police said.

• Police said that they had found “multiple knives” in the area and were looking at which, if any, were used in the attack.

• The stabbings took place during a festival of diversity to mark the city’s 650th anniversary, which began on Friday and was supposed to run through to Sunday.

• Witnesses alerted police shortly after 9.30pm on Friday night to an unknown attacker having wounded several people with a knife in the city’s central square, the Fronhof.

• Authorities cancelled the remainder of the weekend festival.

• The German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, said the perpetrator must be caught quickly and punished to the fullest extent of the law.

• The country’s interior minister, Nancy Faeser, said in an update on X that police were still searching for the attacker and trying to establish a motive.