At least eight people have been killed in an attack on a Jehovah’s Witness hall in Hamburg, German police said on Friday.
The figure was advanced on the Police website, which also reports an unknown number of injured. The Bild newspaper had previously reported that the attack had generated “a bloodbath” and left at least seven dead and eight seriously injured.
Authorities have yet to release a possible motive for Thursday night’s shooting in Germany’s second-largest city in the north of the country.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz lamented the “brutal act of violence” and stressed that his thoughts were with the victims and their families.
German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser also reacted on Twitter, saying she was “shocked by the appalling act of violence.”
The Jehovah’s Witness community also said it was “deeply saddened” by the deadly attack on members. “The religious community is deeply saddened by the terrible passing of its members.”
The police officers indicated that they were alerted to the shooting at 9:15 p.m. this Thursday (8:15 p.m. in Lisbon) and that, after arriving at the scene, they heard a shot on an upper floor of the building.
A police spokesman told reporters that there was “evidence that the perpetrator of the attack” could be in the building, “possibly even among the dead.”
The German news agency dpa reported that rescue teams pulled 18 people, who escaped unharmed, from a building used by Jehovah’s Witnesses.
Jehovah’s Witnesses are part of an international church, founded in the United States in the 19th century and headquartered in Warwick, New York, which has a worldwide membership of about 8.7 million people, with about 170,000 in Germany.
German authorities have been on high alert in recent years in the face of a double threat from terrorism, Islamic extremism and right-wing.
Germany has been the victim of attacks by Islamic extremist movements, in particular one with a truck, claimed by the Islamic State (IS) group that caused 12 deaths in December 2016, in Berlin, the deadliest of its kind committed on German soil.
Germans continue to be a target for Islamic extremist groups, particularly due to the country’s involvement in the coalition against IS in Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan.
From 2013 to the end of 2021, the number of Muslims considered dangerous in Germany has increased fivefold, reaching 615, the German Interior Ministry said.
Following an alert from the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), German authorities announced on January 8 the arrest of two Iranians suspected of preparing a chemical attack using ricin and cyanide.
Another threat is the extreme right, after several deadly attacks in recent years against communities or religious sites in the country.
In the racist attack in Hanau, near Frankfurt (west), in February 2020, a German involved in a conspiracy movement killed nine young people, all of foreign origin.
Between 2000 and 2007, a neo-Nazi group called the NSU had already killed nine immigrants and one police officer. Two of the members committed suicide before being arrested and the third was sentenced to life in prison.
Source: TSF
