Timeline: Deadly attacks on Christmas markets in Europe

A car drove into a crowded outdoor Christmas market in the eastern German city of Magdeburg on Friday, killing at least five people and injuring more than 200.

Authorities have labelled the incident a deliberate attack. The driver was arrested at the scene shortly after the car struck the market around 7 pm local time when the area was filled with holiday shoppers preparing for the weekend.

Ensuring the safety of Christmas markets has been a heightened concern since 2016, when an Islamist extremist drove a truck into a crowd at a Berlin Christmas market, killing 13 people and injuring dozens more.

Christmas markets are popular in Germany and the country hosts an estimated 2,500 to 3,000 Christmas markets each year, running for approximately a month from late November until shortly after Christmas.

Timeline of major attacks at Christmas markets in Europe:

Germany has recently seen a series of suspected Islamist knife attacks.

In August, three people were killed and eight others injured during a stabbing spree at a street festival in the western city of Solingen.

Authorities arrested a Syrian suspect in connection with the attack, which was later claimed by IS.

In June, a police officer lost his life in a knife attack in Mannheim, with an Afghan national identified as the main suspect.