German chancellor attends funeral of teenage train attack victims

Chancellor Olaf Scholz joined hundreds of people on Sunday for the funeral of two teenagers who died after being stabbed on a train in northern Germany last month.

Residents and regional officials also paid their respects at the Vicelin Church in Neumünster to the 17-year-old girl and 19-year-old man, both students at a local vocational school, who died in the apparently random attack in Brokstedt on January 25.

"We will never accept that something like this happens in our country," Scholz said before the funeral service. Two young people had become innocent victims of a completely insane act, he said.

The pepetrator, a 33-year-old stateless Palestinian who came to Germany in 2014, is being held in custody on two counts of homicide and further counts of attempted murder. Five more people were injured in the incident on the regional train travelling from Kiel to Hamburg, three of them critically.

Regarding the debate on the repatriation of rejected asylum seekers, Scholz said that those who cannot successfully claim protection in Germany would have to return to their countries of origin, he said.

"This is central to guaranteeing asylum," Scholz said. "I will also do everything I can to ensure that this is not just an effort by Germany, but that we in Europe act together on this," he added.