Maltese expat recounts how panic took over during the Berlin lorry terrorism attack

“Terrible screams” filled the air as a seven-ton lorry came hurtling through a cheerful Christmas market in central Berlin on Monday night, a Maltese eyewitness told the Times of Malta.
“There was a great atmosphere. I was just having a look at the things on display – small Christmas trees and decorations – and then, suddenly, a roar of terrible screams erupted and panic took over. I didn’t know what to expect. One minute it was Christmas and the next its hell,” Alisson Grech Schäfer, a Maltese expat living in Berlin, recounted yesterday.
Twelve people were killed and at least 48 were injured, some seriously, in what is being treated by the German authorities as an act of terrorism.
It is not yet known who was driving the vehicle, which mounted the pavement at about 70 kilometres-an-hour and ploughed through the bustling marketplace.
“I was lucky I wasn’t hurt at all. I know many weren’t as lucky as me. It was truly horrifying,” Mrs Grech Schäfer, 39, said.
She was not the only Maltese to witness the incident.

A Maltese couple holidaying in the German capital took to Facebook yesterday to assure friends and family that although they had been at the market at the time of the...