WorldMembers of Berlin's 2SLGBTQ+ community and others voiced ‌grief, anger and solidarity on Sunday after a vehicle rammed into crowds at the city's annual Christopher Street Day Pride celebrations, killing one person and injuring 29.Vehicle rammed into crowds Saturday, killing 1 person and injuring 29Thomson Reuters · Posted: Jul 26, 2026 3:27 PM EDT | Last Updated: 2 hours agoListen to this articleEstimated 5 minutesThe audio version of this article is generated by AI-based technology. Mispronunciations can occur. We are working with our partners to continually review and improve the results.People gather around flowers, mementoes and candles left by the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin Sunday, after a deadly incident in which a vehicle crashed into a crowd near Berlin's annual Christopher Street Day Pride parade. (Christian Mang/Reuters)Members of Berlin's 2SLGBTQ+ community and others voiced ‌grief, anger and solidarity on Sunday after a vehicle rammed into crowds at the city's annual Christopher Street Day Pride celebrations, killing one person and injuring 29.Organizers of the parade cancelled several related events after Saturday night's attack, including a breakfast market at a popular food hall ​and a post-parade cleanup.Instead, thousands of people gathered for a ​community vigil at 2 p.m. local time in Pariser Platz, the square surrounding the Brandenburg Gate, just a few hundred metres from where the attack took place.The event hit maximum capacity about ​30 minutes after beginning, despite on and off rain, with police limiting attendance due to security ⁠precautions, according to organizers.Attendees ⁠held a moment of silence for the victims and ‌waved Pride flags, with one holding an oversized sign reading "From grief, to anger to resistance!"For Ali Darwich, the deadly attack on the Berlin Pride Festival was an attack on the city of Berlin and everything it stands for: its diversity, its tolerance and its belief in freedom. Police officer Ali Darwich poses for a portrait Sunday near the scene where a car rammed into a crowd at the Pride march in Berlin. (Markus Schreiber/The Associated Press)On a personal level, it also was an attack on everything the Berliner embodies."Born a Muslim, living as a gay man, working as a police officer," Darwich said, as he tried holding back the tears, "this terror attack touches so many aspects of who I am."On Sunday, Darwich, 34, watched sadly as more and more members of the 2SLGBTQ+ community came to Tiergarten park, where the attack took place. They put down flowers, hugged each other and looked in disbelief at the crashed van, which still stood cordoned off behind dozens of police officers.Berlin Pride attack suspect killed in confrontation with police, officials sayLike Darwich, many of them had been celebrating life and love just hours earlier, protesting for equality and warning of an increase of hate crimes against their community. It was only after he woke up on Sunday morning that he truly grasped the significance of the attack."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."People gather outside the Brandenburg Gate for a demonstration Sunday. (Ebrahim Noroozi/The Associated Press)Darwich, who was born in Berlin and has Lebanese and Palestinian roots, expressed worry that the attack would polarize German society even more. "I'm actually feeling desperate this morning," said Darwich, who also works as an influencer and posts many videos on social media that usually try to strike a positive note. "We can't get rid of the hatred some people feel, and it's just getting worse and worse." 'Simply stunned'Others who had come to the impromptu vigil at Tiergarten also expressed anger and shock, but also resilience."We are simply stunned by what happened yesterday," said Andre Lehmann, a top official with the main national 2SLGBTQ+ association, LSVD+. "This suspected attack hits the heart of the queer community."Lehmann said that there has been "a 10-fold increase of anti-queer hate crime in Germany within a few years." He 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 places flowers near the scene where the car rammed into the crowd. (Markus Schreiber/The Associated Press)Ashley Jump, a 26-year-old U.K. resident, had travelled to Berlin for Saturday's Pride parade but had left the celebrations before the attack. Jump, still in shock, returned Sunday to leave flowers at a memorial near the crime scene."They'll never erase us, we'll never be gone," they said, their voice shivering from pain. "As long as humanity has existed, we've existed. And as long as humanity exists, we will exist. We will not be removed."German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and Justice Minister Stefanie Hubig attended a memorial service at the medieval St. Mary's Church.People mourn outside the Brandenburg Gate on Sunday. (Ebrahim Noroozi/The Associated Press)Alfonso Pantisano, the Berlin state government's LGBTQ affairs commissioner, said he was at the Brandenburg Gate when everything changed in ⁠a matter of moments."To you, my dear community: I know that many of you are afraid right now. I won't sugarcoat it — I am, too. But you are not alone in this fear, in your grief and in your ‌anger," Pantisano wrote on Instagram.German rapper Ikkimel, who was part of the stage show for the first day of the Christopher Street Day Pride celebrations, wrote on Instagram, "I hope that many people realize how important it is that we stay strongly together, now more than ever."Berlin has long history as 2SLGBTQ+ hubUp to one million people participate in Berlin's CSD parade each year, according to city authorities.The march through Berlin's green heart, the Tiergarten park, brings together groups and supporters campaigning for the rights and inclusion of gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and intersex ​people.The event — first held in 1979 — takes its name from Christopher Street in New York's Greenwich Village, commemorating the 1969 Stonewall uprising against police raids and ⁠harassment.'We are who we are': Hundreds gather as Pride parade marches through CharlottetownVideoSt. John’s Pride comes to a close with thousands turning out for annual paradeBerlin has long occupied a central place in the history of gay rights and culture, starting in the late ⁠19th century, when sexologist Magnus Hirschfeld founded what is regarded as the world's first gay rights organization in ⁠1897.The city ⁠became an international hub of gay ​and lesbian life during the liberal Weimar era, but the flourishing cultural scene that emerged was largely destroyed under Nazi rule.Despite ​continued discrimination after the Second World War and during Germany's division, gay communities gradually re-emerged in Berlin through bars, social organizations and political activism.With files from The Associated Press