A Christmas Market in Potsdam, Germany, has been evacuated by police after a package was found with wires sticking out of it by an employee of a nearby pharmacy.
Police say that the object appears to be a homemade package measuring 40 by 50 centimetres and have now confirmed in a Tweet that it is an explosive device, using the term ‘USBV’, the German term analagous to ‘IED’. The package is said to have been addressed to the pharmacy which is in the vicinity of the Christmas market, Potsdamer Neuesten Nachrichten reports.
+++EIL+++ Die kontrollierte Entschärfung des verdächtigen Gegenstandes ist erfolgt! #potsdam #0112pdm
— PolizeiBrandenburg_E (@PolizeiBB_E) December 1, 2017
Update 11:50 EST: Police have confirmed the explosive device has been deactivated.
Der USBV-Verdacht hat sich bestätigt. Der betroffene Bereich in der Innenstadt von #Potsdam muss geräumt werden! Bitte beachten Sie unsere Lautsprecherdurchsagen! #0112pdm
— PolizeiBrandenburg_E (@PolizeiBB_E) December 1, 2017
Brandenburg police wrote on Twitter that special forces from the German Federal police had arrived on the scene to deal with the bomb.
According to a police spokesman, they had received no prior warning or threat against the Potsdam Christmas market.
Germany has been increasingly vigilant against potential terror attacks on Christmas markets after failed Tunisian asylum seeker Anis Amri drove a truck through the Berlin Christmas market last year killing twelve people and injuring close to a hundred others.
Spezialkräfte der @bpol_b sind in Potsdam eingetroffen und untersuchen den verdächtigen Gegenstand. #0112pdm
— Polizei Brandenburg (@PolizeiBB) December 1, 2017
Last year a bombing was also attempted at a Christmas market in the town of Ludwigshafen in the Rhineland-Palatinate region when a twelve-year-old boy attempted but failed to explode a homemade bomb.
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