8 killed in Hamburg church shooting

10.03.2023

Eight people were killed in a church shooting in Hamburg, Germany’s second largest city, on Thursday night. German police speculate that none of the perpetrators escaped and the gunman may have died.

(Deutsche Welle Chinese website) A shooting incident occurred at the Jehovah’s Witness meeting hall in Hamburg, northern Germany on the evening of March 9, resulting in the death of 8 people, and the suspected suspect’s body was found at the scene. According to the Twitter account of Hamburg police, only one shooter is currently believed to be involved. The police have not yet confirmed the number of casualties; the motive of the murder is still under investigation.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said on Twitter on Friday that his thoughts were with the victims, their families and the police, calling the incident a “brutal act of violence”.

German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser also tweeted that the government was investigating the case at full speed. The Hamburg police pointed out on its official Twitter that an Internet portal has been set up for people to upload relevant clues about the case. According to German “Der Spiegel” news, the suspect is a former member of the church.

The shooting occurred in the Groß Borstel district (Groß Borstel). Local police spokesman Holger Vehren said that a report was received at around 9:15 p.m. that someone had shot inside the church. The police rushed to the scene and found several casualties, and then heard gunshots from upstairs. After going upstairs to check, they found a person seriously injured, and determined that this person might be the gunman.

The German News Agency reported that a student living nearby said that he heard 4 intensive gunshots, each time several times in a row, with an interval of about 20 seconds to a minute. Another nearby resident said that after hearing gunshots, he saw a person walking into the building and continued to hear gunshots; the resident told German TV that at least 25 gunshots were heard.

Residents of Hamburg’s Alsterdorf district received warnings on their mobile phones of a “life-threatening situation” shortly after the shooting began. The district was cordoned off by police and has since been lifted.

Jehovah’s Witnesses (Jehovah’s Witness) Church was established in the United States in the 19th century and is headquartered in Warwick, New York, USA. It claims to have about 8.7 million believers worldwide, including about 170,000 in Germany.

In the past few years, there have been many mass shootings in Germany. In February 2020, a gunman suspected of being related to the far right shot and killed nine people, including Turkish immigrants, in the western German city of Hanau before committing suicide.

In October 2019, a gunman opened fire outside a synagogue in the eastern German city of Halle on Yom Kippur, killing two people.

(comprehensive report)

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