Shots were fired inside a building used by Jehovah’s Witnesses in the German city of Hamburg. Video / AP
At least six people have been killed and seven injured in a horrific shooting inside a Jehovah’s Witnesses church in Hamburg.
The shooting took place at around 9pm on Thursday (Friday morning NZ time), German police said, with shots fired in a church in Deelboege street in the Grossborstel district.
Police spokesman Holger Vehren said investigators had “indications that a perpetrator may have been in the building and may be even among the dead”.
“We have no indications of a perpetrator on the run,” he added.
According to police, officers were able to access the site quickly after distress calls came in.
An estimated 175,000 Germans, including 3800 in Hamburg, 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.
Germany has been rocked by several attacks in recent years, both by jihadists and far-right extremists.
Among the deadliest committed by Islamist extremists was a truck rampage at a Berlin Christmas market in December 2016 that killed 12 people.
Armed police officers near the scene of a shooting in Hamburg, Germany. Photo / AP
The Tunisian attacker, a failed asylum seeker, was a supporter of the Islamic State jihadist group.
Europe’s most populous nation remains a target for jihadist groups in particular because of its participation in the anti-Islamic State coalition in Iraq and Syria.
Between 2013 and 2021, the number of Islamists considered dangerous in the country had multiplied by five to 615, according to interior ministry data.
But Germany has also been hit by several far-right assaults in recent years, sparking accusations that the government was not doing enough to stamp out neo-Nazi violence.
In February 2020 a far-right extremist shot dead 10 people and wounded five others in the central German city of Hanau.
And in 2019, two people were killed after a neo-Nazi tried to storm a synagogue in Halle on the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur.