After the knife attack on two girls at a school in Berlin-Neukölln, both victims are out of danger. This was reported by RBB on Thursday morning, citing police information. The two girls, aged seven and eight, were attacked on Wednesday shortly after 15 p.m. in the schoolyard of the Evangelical School Neukölln by a 38-year-old man who stabbed them with a knife and seriously injured them. According to dpa, the public prosecutor's office requested that the alleged perpetrator be placed in a psychiatric hospital instead of pre-trial detention in a prison.

Markus Wehner

Political correspondent in Berlin.

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Both girls had been taken to a hospital by rescue helicopter. In a joint statement by the Berlin police and the public prosecutor's office, it was said on Thursday: "Both children are now stable, with the 8-year-old's life in danger." Previously, the German Press Agency had quoted a spokeswoman for the Senate Education Administration as saying that the girl was out of danger.

The police were able to arrest the perpetrator shortly after the attack, he is said to have waited for the police at school. During the search of the school, police officers found the knife. So far, nothing is known about the motive of the perpetrator. The new Berlin Senator for Education, Katharina Günther-Wünsch (CDU), said after a visit to the scene of the crime that it was a lone perpetrator.

A religious or political motive could "probably" be ruled out. Suspicions that it is a mentally disturbed perpetrator, the police did not confirm until Thursday noon. A homicide squad has taken over the investigation.

The school, which is run by Protestants, is attended by around eight hundred pupils, from primary school to integrated comprehensive school to upper secondary school. Numerous children had to watch the crime in the schoolyard. The police had led the students into the school building after the crime for security reasons, they could only be given into the care of their parents in the evening.

There will be no classes at the school this week, and there will also be no exams for the intermediate school leaving certificate. On Thursday, students, parents and teachers should be offered counseling services at the school. The entire school community was "deeply affected and appalled," the headmaster said on Thursday on the school's website. He asked the media not to bother students and staff with questions that everyone needed "time and rest to process the terrible event."