Seventeen-year-old Ukrainian basketball player Volodymyr Yermakov has died after being attacked by a group of teenagers in the German city of Oberhausen, according to the outlets Rheinische Post and Bild. His teammate Artem Kozachenko, who was also attacked, is in intensive care.
The fatal incident reportedly occurred after the players and the teenagers got into a conflict on a bus. After Yermakov and Kozachenko got off the vehicle, the attackers stabbed them, Bild reported. According to Rheinische Post, four people were injured in total.
On Sunday night, police reportedly detained two suspects in the attack: a 15-year-old from the city of Gelsenkirchen and a 14-year-old from the city of Herne.
Volodymyr Yermakov previously played for Ukraine’s national youth basketball team. He moved to Germany after the start of the full-scale war in Ukraine and began playing for the club Art Giants Dusseldorf. The Basketball Federation of Ukraine announcemend his death on February 12. According to the organzation’s statement, Yermakov and Kozachenko were attacked specifically for being Ukrainian.
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