BERLIN — For Ali Darwich, the deadly assault on the Berlin Pride Festival struck at the very heart of what the city represents — its embrace of diversity, its tradition of tolerance, and its commitment to freedom.
On a deeply personal level, it also struck at the core of who he is as a person.
“Born a Muslim, living as a gay man, working as a police officer,” said Darwich, struggling to hold back tears, “this terror attack touches so many aspects of who I am.”
The Saturday night incident — in which a van was driven into a crowd and a stabbing occurred near the Berlin Pride festival — left one person dead and numerous others wounded. Authorities believe it was an act of Islamic extremist terrorism.
The suspect remains on the run. Officials have issued a wanted notice for Abdul Ballout, a 21-year-old German citizen of Lebanese descent, and are cautioning the public not to approach him, as he may be armed and dangerous.
On Sunday, Darwich, 34, looked on with sadness as a steady stream of LGBTQ+ community members made their way to Tiergarten park, the site of the attack. They laid flowers, embraced one another, and stared in disbelief at the crashed van, which remained cordoned off behind a large police presence.
Like Darwich, many of those who gathered had been celebrating love and life just hours before, marching for equality and raising awareness about rising hate crimes targeting their community.
“I was wearing my rainbow-colored shirt, carried a banner at the parade saying ‘why are some people afraid of love but not of hate?,’ and was about to go to an afterparty last night, when friends started calling me to check if I was OK,” he recalled.
Once he realized what had happened, he abandoned his plans for the evening and went home overwhelmed with grief. It wasn’t until Sunday morning, however, that the full weight of the attack truly hit him.
“I asked myself, why as a police officer I did not run to the scene of the crash to help my colleagues. I asked myself as a gay if we will have to live with more fear now even though we are already experiencing bullying and hatred. I asked myself as a Muslim if our community will be exposed to even more racism now.”
Darwich, who was born in Berlin and has Lebanese and Palestinian roots, voiced concern that the attack could deepen divisions within German society.
“I’m actually feeling desperate this morning,” said Darwich, who also works as a gay Muslim influencer and regularly shares videos on social media that typically carry a positive message. “We can’t get rid of the hatred some people feel, and it’s just getting worse and worse.”
Even so, he said he refused to let hatred prevail, and that somewhere deep down he still held onto the hope that “the people of Berlin will make the best of it, that they will work together, and that, hopefully, all of this will lead to an even better Berlin.”
Others who gathered at the spontaneous vigil in Tiergarten shared feelings of shock and anger, but also a sense of determination.
“We are simply stunned by what happened yesterday,” said Andre Lehmann, a senior official with the national LGBTQ+ organization LSVD+. “This suspected attack hits the heart of the queer community.”
The attack, he said, “affects people who took to the street in Berlin this weekend to fight for their rights, their diversity and their rights, and of course with that it is a political act and does not just affect people celebrating.”
Lehmann noted that Germany has seen “a tenfold increase of anti-queer hate crime” over just a few years, and added that “for years, to be honest, nothing has happened and also, to be honest, for years there has been no outcry from society.”
Ashley Jump, a 26-year-old resident of the United Kingdom, had traveled to Berlin specifically for Saturday’s Pride parade but had left the event before the attack took place. Still visibly shaken, Jump returned on Sunday to place flowers at a memorial near the scene.
“They’ll never erase us, we’ll never be gone,” Jump said, voice trembling with emotion. “As long as humanity has existed, we’ve existed. And as long as humanity exists, we will exist. We will not be removed.”
