A police manhunt has been launched in Germany after a 10-year-old child was allegedly thrown from a bridge for speaking Ukrainian.
An unknown Russian-speaking man is wanted by police on suspicion of attempted manslaughter in the state of Lower Saxony after a 10-year-old Ukrainian boy was attacked in the town of Einbeck on Saturday.
According to a report from German broadcaster NTV, several children from Ukraine were gathered on a bridge in the town. A stranger, who is believed to be from Russia, approached the children complaining that they were speaking in their native tongue and demanding that they speak in Russian instead. He is also reported to have told the children that “Ukraine started the war”.
Police said that the man initially grabbed a girl from the group of children by the hair before moving to the ten-year-old boy and throwing him over the bridge’s railing. The boy first smashed into the iron girders mounted to the bridge before falling between them into the canal below.
As the youngster lay there, the man continued his assault, throwing a glass bottle at the boy, and hitting him in the right shoulder. The so-far unidentified man then fled the scene. The prosecutors are treating the case as a politically motivated attack.
Though the boy suffered injuries to his head, shoulder and foot, he fortunately was not seriously injured as a result of the assault and has since been released from the hospital.
Commenting on the incident, the director of the European Resilience Centre, Sergej Sumlenny told London’s Daily Telegraph: “This clearly shows the level of hatred among a certain large group who lives in Germany. Many identify themselves with Russia and the Soviet Union – they watch Russian TV and are totally brainwashed with Russian propaganda.
“This is a standard level of anti-Ukrainianism that you see among Russians, a readiness to hate, cause pain and even kill indiscriminately just because this person speaks Ukrainian.”
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