German police are investigating a man, suspected of being Russian, who allegedly threw a 10-year-old Ukrainian boy off a five-meter high bridge, simply because he spoke his mother tongue, reports the British newspaper The Telegraph, Sunday September 3, 2023.
The facts took place in the town of Einbeck, in Lower Saxony. As children who spoke Ukrainian were gathered on a bridge, a man, believed to be in his 40s and speaking Russian, stopped them and told them “that they should speak Russian instead” and that “It was Ukraine that started the war.” Investigators say the man then pulled a girl’s hair and threw a boy over the bridge railing. The boy hit the iron beams of the bridge before falling into the water of the canal
While the Ukrainian boy was still in the water, his attacker threw a glass bottle at him, hitting him in the right shoulder. He then ran away while the other children helped the injured boy out of the water and warned their parents. The boy suffered minor injuries to his left foot and head, but was quickly released from the hospital.
Investigators believe the attack was motivated by “political considerations”, with Ukrainian refugees facing hardship in Germany, where more than a million of them have been taken in since the start of the Russian invasion.
