People injured in suspected blowpipe attack in Cologne

Three people have been injured in the German city of Cologne after being targeted with darts that were probably shot from a blowgun, police said.

A builder, a passerby and an employee of Cologne’s public transport authority (KVB) were hit by the darts on Monday morning at Barbarossaplatz, a busy transport interchange in the western city.

The darts were several centimetres long, but none of the victims was badly injured.

“We speculate at this moment that these homemade darts were probably shot from a type of blowgun,” a police spokesperson told the Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger, a regional newspaper.

The police have launched a criminal investigation into an unknown person for aggravated bodily harm.

Police were called to Barbarossaplatz at 7.30am to a construction site on the square, where all the victims were injured. They found the weapons lying on the ground, but would not specify how many there were, or how or from what they were made.

Police said they were working on the assumption that the victims were picked out by chance, and are looking for more than one perpetrator, who they have described as being “on the run”. They have urged witnesses to come forward with any information.