Berlin-- Two people were killed and three others injured, including a two-year-old boy, in a stabbing attack in Bavaria on Wednesday. The suspect is a former asylum seeker who was supposed to leave Germany but was arrested.

German Chancellor Olaf Schulz said authorities must find out why the suspect is still in the country. He said with a month to go before national elections, curbing irregular migration was a major issue and the attack was bound to have consequences.

The attack took place just before noon in a park in Aschaffenburg, a city of about 72,000 people. Bavaria's top security official, Joachim Herrmann, said the attacker used a kitchen knife to attack the boy, who was part of a group of kindergarten children.

He said the 2-year-old child of Moroccan origin was killed, along with a 41-year-old German man who was passing by and appeared to have intervened to protect other children. Bavarian officials said two adults and a two-year-old Syrian girl were injured and were taken to hospital for treatment with non-life-threatening injuries.

Herman said the suspect was arrested 12 minutes after the attack as other passers-by chased him.

He said the suspect, a 28-year-old Afghan national, had come to the attention of authorities at least three times for violent behavior. Each time, he was sent for psychiatric treatment and then released.

Hermann said the suspect is believed to have arrived in Germany in November 2022 and applied for asylum in early 2023. On December 4, he told authorities that he would leave the country voluntarily and requested documents from the Afghan consulate. A week later, German authorities officially ended the asylum process and let him leave.

Police will work out his motive in the coming days, Hermann said, adding that he was currently suspected of suffering from mental illness. He said a first search of his room at the refugee home found no evidence that he had radical Islamic views, and only drugs suitable for his psychiatric treatment were found.

The attack comes a month before Germany's national election and is politically sensitive.

Scholz issued a strongly worded statement condemning what he called "incomprehensible acts of terror."

"I'm tired of the violence that happens here every few weeks - the perpetrators coming to us for protection," he said. "False tolerance is inappropriate here. The authorities must, under high pressure, find out why the attacker is still in Germany."

Scholz added that this must have "direct consequences - just talking about it is not enough". He did not elaborate.

After a knife attack by an Afghan immigrant in Mannheim in May killed a police officer and injured four others, Scholz vowed that Germany would start deporting criminals from Afghanistan and Syria again. A suspected Islamist extremist from Syria has vowed to step up deportations of rejected asylum seekers after he was charged with killing three people following a knife attack in Solingen in August.

At the end of August, Germany deported Afghan nationals back to the country for the first time since the Taliban returned to power in 2021.

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Kirsten Grieshaber in Berlin contributed to this report.