Two dead after car drives into crowd in Germany

Two people have been killed after a vehicle drove into a pedestrian area in the city of Mannheim, western Germany.

Five people were seriously injured and another five suffered minor injuries in the incident, investigators said.

Authorities arrested a "lone" suspect, a 40-year-old German man who resided in the neighbouring state, who prosecutors say has "concrete indications of mental illness".

Mannheim Police issued a request that people avoid the area, but said that there is no further danger to the public.

The incident occurred at around 12:15 local time (11:15 GMT), Mannheim Police said.

Images from the scene showed police investigating a car, a small black Ford, which had sustained heavy damage to its front.

The state interior minister Thomas Strobl said the man, from the neighbouring state of Rhineland-Palatinate, used the vehicle "as a weapon".

"This act is one of several crimes in the recent past in which a car was misused as a weapon," Mr Strobl said, but added that there is no evidence to suggest the incident is connected to the Easter carnival taking place in the city.

Prosecutors said the suspect is in hospital with a self-inflicted gunshot wound, but is stable after medical treatment.

He is being investigated for two counts of murder and several of attempted murder, Mannheim chief public prosecutor Romeo Schluessler told reporters.

Mannheim's mayor described the incident as "abhorrent and "inhumane".

"Our thoughts are with the dead and injured, their families and friends," Mayor Christian Specht said.

Olaf Scholz, Germany's outgoing chancellor, thanked the emergency services and wished "strength" for eyewitnesses in Mannheim to "process what they have experienced".

"We mourn with the relatives of the victims of a senseless act of violence and fear for those injured," he said in a social media post.

The incident comes at a time of heightened security as outdoor carnivals linked to Easter celebrations are held across Germany.

There was a parade through the Mannheim city centre on Sunday, with major events scheduled for Tuesday.

A market has now been closed and a street carnival in the city centre will not take place. Carnival events in the nearby suburbs of Feudenheim, Neckarau and Sandhofen have also been cancelled.

Germany has endured a number of violent attacks over the last year, which have left several people dead and hundreds injured.

Nine months ago, also in Mannheim and only a few blocks away from where Monday's attack is believed to have taken place, an Afghan man stabbed several people, killing a policeman.

Then, in August, another knife attack left eight people injured and three dead in Solingen. The Syrian man who was charged with the crime was suspected of links with the Islamic State terrorist group.

In December a man rammed a car into a crowd at a Christmas market in Magdeburg, leaving six dead and 299 injured. A 50-year-old Saudi psychiatrist was arrested.

In January, a 28-year-old Afghan asylum seeker attacked a group of small children in a park in the Bavarian town of Aschaffenburg, killing a two-year-old child and a passer-by who tried to help the boy.

And in February, a 24-year-old Afghan asylum seeker drove a car into a crowd, injuring more than two dozen people. A mother and child later died from their injuries.