Six people were injured in a knife attack on Friday (August 30) on a shuttle bus headed to a festival in the German town of Siegen, east of Cologne. Around 40 people were on board when the attack happened at about 7:40 pm.

Police said Sunday evening that three people aged between 19 and 23, who had received life-threatening injuries in the incident, were out of danger. 

Coming a week after a deadly knife attack in Solingen in the same state of North Rhine-Westphalia, the bus stabbing "brings back the worst memories," said the state premier, Hendrik Wüst, on social media.

"I … thank the courageous passengers who intervened and prevented something worse from happening," he added.

False rumors circulate

The Solingen attack on August 23 by a suspected Islamist left three people dead. The perpetrator was a Syrian who had received subsidiary protection after the deadline to deport him had expired. The incident reignited debate about immigration in Germany and led to a major crackdown on asylum policy.

Police said that the woman who carried out the attack on Friday was mentally ill and had no apparent terrorist motive. 

Seeking to correct rumors spread on social media, they also said the attacker was a German citizen, not an immigrant.

After taking on the investigation, Dortmund police warned: "We would like to make it very clear at this point: The 32-year-old suspect is a woman with German citizenship with no migrant background. Please refrain from speculation and hostility in any direction!"

'This story must be told' 

The mayor of Siegen, Steffen Mues, was also at pains to point out that the attacker was a German national, calling posts on Facebook "garbage" and "irresponsible".

"It was not a woman with dual citizenship or from a migrant background, it was a German woman who stabbed the people," Mues emphatically told the crowd at the festival.

More importantly, he said, the "heroes of the story" were three young immigrant women.

"They overpowered this woman, fought her back down, ensuring that nothing more serious occurred, probably saving lives by defeating this woman," said the mayor after hearing witness accounts from other passengers.

"This story has to be told," he added, "because things are not only black and white." 

Beyond stereotypes

The three women had been traveling on the bus with their young children when they intervened to stop the attacker.

Afterwards they were shocked at what they had managed to do, police superintendent Peter-Thomas Stuberg told the Siegener Zeitung newspaper.

He said he had the utmost respect for the young women because they "of all people, and in a bus full of adults, showed civil courage."

Stuberg said that the three women were of the Muslim faith, which went "beyond every cliche and stereotype."

North Rhine-Westphalia’s interior minister, Herbert Reul, who traveled to Siegen following the incident, said what had happened there had "absolutely nothing to do with what happened in Solingen."

"In both cases a knife was used, (but) there’s a huge difference between an act of terrorism and when a German woman with psychiatric problems randomly stabs people," Reul told the broadcaster WDR.

The interior minister said he was looking at whether it was legally possible to introduce bag checks at festivals.

Praising "those who courageously intervened" in the bus attack, he also highlighted their immigrant background: "I think that can make one feel somewhat proud."