Germany: Mass shooting at a church
Germany: A heart-wrenching incident took place in Germany as several people lost their lives in a mass shooting at a Jehovah’s Witness centre in Hamburg on Thursday. It is believed that the gunman was dead, German police said.
Official statements
According to police officials, the first emergency calls were made around 2015 GMT after the shooting started at the building in the northern region of Hamburg.
Taking to Twitter, police said, “Several people were seriously injured, some even fatally.”
‘Extreme danger’ warning
“At the moment there is no reliable information on the motive of the crime,” the police added, urging people not to speculate.
After the mass shooting incident, the German Police sounded the alarm for “extreme danger” in the area using a catastrophe warning app.
Residents are requested to stay indoors and avoid the area, police said, adding that streets surrounding the building had been cordoned off.
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6 dead
Police did not give an exact death count. However, several German media outlets said at least six people had been killed.
Taking notes from the search, the first police at the scene found several lifeless bodies and seriously wounded people. They also heard a shot in the “upper part of the building” before finding a body in the area where it rang out.
The police spokesperson said, “We have no indications of a perpetrator on the run.”
Instead, officers have “indications that a perpetrator may have been in the building and maybe even among the dead.”
The person uncovered in the upper part of the building was “possibly” the perpetrator, the spokesperson added.
According to a local media report, 17 unhurt people, who had been at the event, were being attended to by the fire brigade.
Jehovah’s witnesses in Germany
Some 175,000 people in Germany, including 3,800 in Hamburg, are Jehovah’s Witnesses, a US Christian movement set up in the late 19th century that preaches non-violence and is known for door-to-door evangelism.
The port city’s mayor, Peter Tschentscher, expressed shock at the shooting on Twitter.
Sending his sympathies to the victims’ families, he said emergency services were doing their utmost to clarify the situation.
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