Shooting at Jehovah’s Witness building in Hamburg, Germany, leaves at least eight people dead

According to authorities, eight persons, including the suspected shooter, were killed in a shooting at a Jehovah’s Witness centre in Hamburg, Germany, on Friday. The attack’s purpose is yet unknown.

In the attack on Thursday night at the Kingdom Hall structure in Hamburg, a port city, members of the Jehovah’s Witnesses were attending a religious service. Many more people were hurt.

According to Hamburg police, “eight individuals were fatally injured, allegedly including the suspected offender,” and “several critically injured” were also included in the statement.

Chancellor Olaf Scholz referred to the act of violence as “brutal” and expressed his condolences to the victims’ families.

“Deeply horrified” by the “horrific attack on its members,” according to the Jehovah’s Witnesses association in Germany.

Once gunfire sounded out at the structure in the city’s Gross Borstel neighbourhood around 2015 GMT, the first emergency calls were placed.

Earlier, Hamburg police stated that they were still investigating the attack’s purpose. They are scheduled to provide an update at a news conference at noon.

Police urged people not to speculate, saying that they currently had “no solid information” on the crime’s purpose.

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Using a disaster warning app, the region was declared to be in “severe danger,” but just after 3 am local time, Germany’s Federal Office for Civil Protection withdrew the alert.

On Twitter, Peter Tschentscher, the mayor of the port city, expressed his outrage at the shooting.

Authorities have urged witnesses to come forward and share any photos or videos they may have to a specific website.

According to Nancy Faeser, minister of the interior, investigators are “working nonstop to establish the backdrop” of the incident.

Der Spiegel, a news publication, said that the alleged assailant was a former Jehovah’s Witness who was not an extremist.

The publication, which did not provide sources, identified him as a guy in his 30s to 40s and claimed that he was carrying a weapon.

church study group

Members of the organisation had gathered there for a religious service when the incident happened. The Jehovah’s Witnesses Kingdom Hall is a plain, three-story structure.

A American Christian organisation founded in the late 19th century that promotes non-violence and is well-known for door-to-door preaching, Jehovah’s Witnesses have roughly 175,000 adherents in Germany, including 3,800 in Hamburg.

According to officials, the first arriving policemen discovered numerous dead corpses and several critically injured persons.

According to the Hamburger Abendblatt, the fire crew was providing care for 17 attendees who were not injured.

A corpse was discovered in the vicinity of the gunfire after officers heard one in the “upper portion of the structure,” according to the police.

Early on Friday, Hamburg police tweeted that they believed the corpse belonged to the culprit.

attack victims

Attacks carried out by far-right extremists and Islamists alike have shook Germany in recent years.

The 2016 truck rampage at a Berlin Christmas market that left 12 people dead was one of the bloodiest acts carried out by Islamic extremists.

The assailant from Tunisia was an Islamic State follower and an unsuccessful asylum applicant.

The government has been accused of not doing enough to combat neo-Nazi violence after a number of far-right attacks in Germany in recent years.

A far-right fanatic opened fire in the city of Hanau in central Germany in February 2020, killing 10 people and injuring five more.

A neo-Nazi who attempted to attack a Halle synagogue on the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur in 2019 ended up killing two people.