On a night of chaos marking the beginning of the new year, rioting in Berlin resulted in over 400 arrests, and fireworks-related mishaps have claimed five lives throughout Germany.
A 24-year-old man was among those killed after his handmade firework was accidentally set off close to the town of Geseke in North Rhine Westphalia.
Authorities say that a 45-year-old and a 50-year-old also perished while holding pyrotechnics that detonated in their hands.
In Hamburg, a 20-year-old was killed with a handmade firecracker.
Over the course of the night, 400 people were arrested in Berlin following altercations and assaults on police officers. According to city officials, the altercations injured one firefighter and thirty police officers.
Next, a strong explosion from a firework that smashed windows. Locals in the Schoneberg district complained, and social media videos showed a massive cleanup operation the next morning.
According to a Berlin fire department spokesperson, 36 homes in the neighbourhood were declared uninhabitable, and two people were hospitalised following the event. To stop more bloodshed, hundreds of the nation’s police officers had been sent to the German capital.
In Germany, where it is legal to light fireworks for a few hours leading up to New Year’s Day, fatal accidents and riots are not unusual on New Year’s Eve. But the day before, after dozens of pyrotechnic attacks on emergency forces in the past, German police and fireman unions demanded a statewide ban on private fireworks.
The majority of fireworks-related deaths and injuries, according to the German Pyrotechnics Association, are caused by illegal and do-it-yourself firework use rather than by pyrotechnics that are lawfully sold in stores in the hours leading up to the evening.
It’s unknown if security guards in German cities were targeted by homemade fireworks. While police in Leipzig reported being attacked by large crowds of individuals brandishing bottles and personal explosives, Hamburg police stated that nine policemen and one firefighter were hurt during the night.
Additional incidents were reported in Cologne, where two police officers were hurt with firecrackers, and Kiel, where police claimed they were attacked by some 70 individuals.
Nancy Faeser, the German interior minister, denounced the disturbances and promised that anyone responsible would face “the utmost severity” of punishment.
