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Several people were injured after a car ploughed into pedestrians in the city centre of Modena, in northern Italy.
Eight people were injured, four of them critically, Mayor Massimo Mezzetti told Italian TV. He said a woman pinned against a shop window may require the amputation of both legs.
Of the critically injured, two people have been transferred to the Maggiore Hospital in Bologna and two to the hospital in Modena.
The driver was identified as a 31-year-old Italian citizen of Moroccan origin, living in the province of Modena, with no previous convictions. He was detained and is being questioned at police headquarters as authorities work to determine whether he was under the influence of substances or acted deliberately, the mayor said.
Early eyewitness accounts said the driver “aimed for the sidewalk, hitting a bike, then crashed while slamming head-on into a woman, badly hurt with both legs crushed”. The car then crashed into a shop window.
According to the mayor’s account, the car headed for the pavement, also hitting a bicycle before crashing into the woman. “They saw him with a weapon in his hand but he did not manage to stab anyone. It appears that he tried to strike someone,” the mayor added.
Government monitoring
The Italian government is following the developments in Modena closely, according to official parliament sources. Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni is reportedly in contact with the interior minister, Matteo Piantedosi, and with the undersecretary to the prime minister’s office responsible for the country’s security, Alfredo Mantovano, to receive real-time updates on the outcome of the questioning and the work of the anti-terrorism unit.
“What happened today in Modena, where a man ran over several pedestrians and then is reported to have stabbed a passer-by, is extremely serious. I express my solidarity with the injured and their families. I would also like to thank the citizens who bravely intervened to stop the perpetrator and the law-enforcement officers for their action. I have spoken to the mayor and I remain in constant contact with the authorities to monitor how the situation develops. I trust that the person responsible will be held fully accountable for his actions,” Meloni later wrote on X.
Modena’s mayor, Mezzetti, thanked “those citizens who showed courage and civic duty”. He added that “we need to understand what’s behind this act. But it was a dramatic event.”
“I am deeply shaken. Whatever it was, it was extremely serious. If it turns out to be an attack, that would be even more serious,” Mezzetti said.