A 14-year-old girl has died in Germany after she was stabbed while walking to school with a friend, who also suffered serious injuries.

The alleged attacker, a 27-year-old refugee from Eritrea, is under police guard in hospital. He has serious injuries after he reportedly turned the knife he allegedly used in the attack on himself.

“We have no knowledge of any political or religious motivation for this crime,” said Thomas Strobl, the interior minister of Baden-Württemberg in south Germany.

Mr Strobl tried to calm tensions after the crime in the town of Illerkirchberg on Monday, which shocked a country mulling whether to make it easier for foreigners to take German citizenship.

Police apprehended the suspect, who had no previous convictions and was in Germany legally, at “nearby asylum seekers’ accommodation”. They found the knife used in the attack, local media reported.

Germany’s Bild newspaper said the accommodation centre was opposite the scene of the attack in Illerkirchberg, which has 4,700 residents, on Monday.

The girls were walking a short distance past the centre to get the bus to go to their secondary school when their alleged attacker struck before fleeing into the centre.

The victim, a German girl with a Turkish family background, was revived at the scene but later died in hospital, police said.

She was named as Ece S by the German press, which quoted an unnamed friend who described her as “so happy”.

A 13-year-old girl, named only as Nerea M, was also hurt in the incident but did not suffer life-threatening injuries.

There is media speculation the attack could be treated as attempted murder and the girl is distressed after being informed her friend had died in the attack.

“The girl was lying on the floor bleeding with a huge stab wound in her stomach. A second had injuries below the chest, a stab wound. She was completely devastated,” an eyewitness said on Monday.

Local media reported the suspect had so far refused to speak to police. He is expected to be confronted by a magistrate on Tuesday, with a decision to be made over whether to arrest him or send him to psychiatric care.

“Now the public prosecutor’s office and the police are investigating why the two girls were attacked and whether the suspect and the two girls knew each other beforehand,” the authorities said.

Bernhard Weber, chief of police, told Bild: “We don’t know what made him commit this terrible act. Assumptions are useless.”

“There is no reason to be afraid and not to send the children to school. I assume it was a one-off act, an ad hoc act,” he added.

Mayor Markus Häußler said: “The community is shocked. We mourn with the family.”

Ahmet Basar Sen, the Turkish ambassador to Germany, visited the scene of the crime on Tuesday with Mr Strobl.

“I mourn the girl who was killed and sincerely hope that the injured girl will recover,” Nancy Faeser, the Federal Interior Minister, said on Monday.

The police are urgently investigating the background of the attack, she said.

In 2019, four asylum seekers, men between the ages of 17 and 26 from Iraq and Afghanistan, were convicted of gang-raping a 14-year-old in a refugee centre in the town.