By Aniemeka Chiamaka Rejoice (Umunna TV)
Several people have been killed in a shooting at a Jehovah’s Witness centre in Hamburg, with the gunman believed to be among the dead, German police said Thursday.
According to reports, the first emergency calls were made around 20:15 GMT after shots rang out at the building in the city’s northern district of Gross Borstel, a police spokesman at the scene said.
Police tweeted that “several people were seriously injured, some even fatally” in the incident.
“At the moment there is no reliable information on the motive of the crime,” police said, urging people not to speculate.
An alarm for “extreme danger” in the area had been sounded using a catastrophe warning app, but Germany’s Federal Office for Civil Protection lifted it shortly after 3 am local time.
Hamburg police tweeted early Friday: “The police measures in the surrounding area are gradually being discontinued. Investigations into the background of the crime are continuing.”
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.
In the non-descript, three-storey building, police said an event had been taking place on Thursday evening.
Jehovah’s Witnesses had gathered for a weekly Bible study meeting, according to local daily Hamburger Abendblatt.
There are about 175,000 people in Germany, including 3,800 in Hamburg, who 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 first officers at the scene found several lifeless bodies and seriously wounded people, police said.
Hamburger Abendblatt reported that 17 unhurt people, who had been at the event, were being attended to by the fire brigade.
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