A mother, 37, and her two-year-old daughter have died from injuries sustained in Thursday’s car attack in the German city of Munich, police say.

At least 37 people were injured after a car was driven into a crowd of people at a trade union rally.

The driver was a 24-year-old Afghan asylum seeker, police said, identified in local media as Farhad N, who was arrested at the scene. Prosecutors have said the suspect appeared to have a religious motivation.

The mother and child were among those taken to hospital with serious injuries after the attack.

“Unfortunately, we have to confirm the deaths today of the two-year-old child and her 37-year-old mother,” police spokesman Ludwig Waldinger told news agency AFP on Saturday.

The car ramming has brought security issues back into focus the week before federal elections are held in Germany.

A series of attacks have been carried out in Munich by immigrants, with two of the alleged attackers coming from Afghanistan.

The attack also happened on the eve of the Munich Security Conference, which began on Friday.

After arriving in the city on Friday, US Vice-President JD Vance had expressed his condolences to the victims and those injured in the attack.

German authorities have said the suspect arrived in the country in 2016 and, although his application for asylum was turned down, was allowed to stay in Germany as he faced risks being deported back to Afghanistan. He had a valid residence and work permit.

He had no previous criminal record and police said there was no evidence of a link to a jihadist group. He also appears to have acted alone, police say.

On Friday, Munich public prosecutor Gabriele Tilmann told reporters the suspect had said “Allahu Akbar”, God is greatest in Arabic when he was detained and she suggested he “may have had an Islamist motivation”.