How Jehovah's Witness Worshippers Were Attacked, Killed In Hamburg | READ DETAILS
Faith Ukanwa
Mar 10, 2023
How Jehovah's Witness Worshippers Were Attacked, Killed In Hamburg | READ DETAILS
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.Police have not given a death toll, but multiple local media outlets reported that the shooting had left seven dead and eight seriously injured.
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The first emergency calls were made around 2015 GMT after shots rang out at the building in the city's northern district of Gross Borstel, a police spokesman at the scene said.
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Police tweeted that "several people were seriously injured, some even fatally" in the incident.
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"At the moment there is no reliable information on the motive of the crime," police said, urging people not to speculate.
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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.
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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."
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The port city's mayor, Peter Tschentscher, expressed shock at the shooting on Twitter.
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Sending his sympathies to the victims' families, he said emergency services were doing their utmost to clarify the situation.
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- Bible study group -
In the non-descript, three-storey building, police said an event had been taking place on Thursday evening.
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Jehovah's Witnesses had gathered for a weekly Bible study meeting, according to local daily Hamburger Abendblatt.
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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.
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The first officers at the scene found several lifeless bodies and seriously wounded people, police said.
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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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Officers heard a shot in the "upper part of the building" before finding a body in the area where it rang out, police said.
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"We have no indications of a perpetrator on the run," said the police spokesman.
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Instead, officers have "indications that a perpetrator may have been in the building and may be even among the dead."
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The spokesman added that the person uncovered in the upper part of the building was "possibly" the perpetrator.
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"We have found a lifeless person in a community centre in [Gross Borstel] which we assume could be a perpetrator," Hamburg police tweeted early Friday morning.
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"According to the current state of affairs, we assume that there is one perpetrator," police said in a separate tweet.
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- Hit by attacks -
Germany has been rocked by several attacks in recent years, both by jihadists and far-right extremists.
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Among the deadliest committed by Islamist extremists was a truck rampage at a Berlin Christmas market in December 2016 that killed 12 people.
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The Tunisian attacker, a failed asylum seeker, was a supporter of the Islamic State jihadist group.
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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.
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Between 2013 and 2021, the number of Islamists considered dangerous in the country had multiplied by five to 615, according to interior ministry data.
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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.
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In February 2020, a far-right extremist shot dead 10 people and wounded five others in the central German city of Hanau.
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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.
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AFP
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— Faith Ukanwa