Caen: Car Rams Pedestrians Outside Station, 2 Dead
A car rammed a group of pedestrians outside the train station in Caen, France on Wednesday evening, killing two people and injuring at least ten; the suspect is a 26-year-old man born in Russia.
A car rammed a group of pedestrians on Wednesday, August 26, at around 10:15 p.m., in a street facing the train station in Caen, France, in the Normandy region. Two people were killed and at least ten were injured, seven of them critically and three lightly, according to Calvados department prefect David Clavier.
“The car deliberately drove into pedestrians in the street facing the station,” Clavier told reporters in Caen that same evening, confirming that it was not a traffic accident but a deliberate act.
What is known about the attack
Sources disagree even on exactly where the victims were standing at the moment of impact. Le Figaro, cited by Euronews, reports that people were waiting at a tram stop on the street facing the station. Breitbart, citing a witness quoted by BFMTV, writes that the victims were sitting on a bench at a bus stop when the vehicle “came from the other direction at full speed and ran over everyone.” Which version is accurate has not yet been established.
There are also discrepancies over the identity and number of the injured. A judicial source told BFMTV that the dead and injured include French, Bangladeshi, Egyptian, and Afghan nationals, aged between 17 and 36. Euronews, citing Bruno Coutansois, a senior security official in Caen, reports that all the victims are men aged between 17 and 40 and that most are foreign nationals. The two sources disagree on the upper age limit, 36 versus 40, and agree only that the victims are mostly young, foreign nationals.
The death toll shifted in the first hours after the attack. The first reports overnight between Wednesday and Thursday spoke of one person killed and ten injured. The second death was confirmed only on Thursday morning, when prefect Clavier announced the final toll of two dead.
According to a BFMTV report, the attack was preceded by a fight at a nearby bar. The deputy public prosecutor in Caen told the media: “At this stage, we are not considering a terrorist motive,” while noting that the investigation was only just beginning. The vehicle used in the attack was a black car of German make.
Who is the suspect, and what happens next?
The suspect is a 26-year-old man born in Russia. According to French officials, he was not known to intelligence services and was known to police only for traffic offenses. He was arrested that same evening in Ouistreham, about 20 kilometers from the scene of the attack, after fleeing.
An investigation has been opened on charges of murder and aggravated intentional violence, and the area around the station has been closed to the public while forensic investigators carry out their examination.
Caen Mayor Aristide Olivier told radio station ICI Normandie that it was an “absolute tragedy,” praising the speed with which emergency services and security forces responded that night.
So far, no ideological or religious motive for the suspect has been reported, and the French prosecutor has ruled out only a terrorist motive, not other possible causes, including a personal dispute that, according to reports so far, preceded the attack on the pedestrians. Whether the fight at the bar was a direct trigger for the attack, or whether these were two separate incidents that happened to coincide on the same street within minutes of each other, is something the investigation has yet to determine.
