On Thursday night, a former member of the Jehovah’s Witness religious community, aged between 30 and 40, shot and killed seven people and injured several more at a meeting hall in the Gross Borstel district of Hamburg, Germany.
The gunman is believed to have acted alone and is presumed to be dead.
At present, the motive behind the attack remains unknown. The victims have not yet been identified, and investigations are still ongoing. The police were alerted to the shooting at around 21:15 local time and found people who were seriously injured or fatally wounded.
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They heard a shot from the upper part of the building and subsequently found another person there. Authorities do not suspect any perpetrators fled the scene. It is thought that people had gathered for a Bible study session when the shooting began at around 21:00 local time. Residents in the vicinity were warned via the federal warning app, NINAwarn, to avoid leaving their homes due to the ongoing police operation.
Several witnesses reported hearing gunshots, with one individual describing four bursts of gunfire and several shots being fired in each. Footage from the scene showed police escorting people out of the building, some to ambulances.
Hamburg’s Interior Minister, Andy Grote, stated on Twitter that police special forces and numerous officers had been deployed to the scene. Hamburg’s Mayor, Peter Tschentscher, expressed his shock and offered condolences to the families of the victims.
The Jehovah’s Witness community in Germany released a statement expressing its deep sorrow at the attack. Chancellor Olaf Scholz condemned the shooting and stated that the reasons behind the attack were “still completely unclear.”
The investigation into the incident is still ongoing, and forensic experts have been working at the scene through the night. Jehovah’s Witnesses are a Christian-based religious movement, with their headquarters based in New York.
