Officials say five people have been killed, including a 9-year-old, after a Saudi doctor drove into a Christmas market teeming with holiday shoppers in the German city of Magdeburg on Friday.

The horror arrived on the evening of December 20th, when a BMW ploughed through the Christmas market in Magdeburg, a city in the eastern state of Saxony-Anhalt, killing a child and four women and leaving hundreds injured.

At least five people, including a 9-year-old child, were killed in the attack, which took place in the eastern city of Magdeburg. The authorities are still seeking a motive.

The latest deadly assault on a beloved German tradition illustrates the challenge of holiday safety. For years, Germany has been strengthening security measures around Christmas markets in reaction to an attack in 2016 in which a man killed 12 people by driving a truck into a market in central Berlin.

There were mounting questions on Sunday about whether the deadly attack on a German Christmas market could have been prevented after it emerged that various authorities across the country had received warnings and tip-offs about the perpetrator.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Monday that more than 3,000 North Korean soldiers have been killed and wounded in Russia's Kursk region and warned that Pyongyang could send more personnel and equipment for Moscow's army.