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A 45-year-old man has been arrested in Germany after opening fire on Monday at a mother-and-baby shelter in Stade, near the port city of Hamburg.
The incident, which left six people dead, has been linked to a child custody dispute. The casualties, four women and two men, were employees at the residence.
The Lüneburg police confirmed that the suspect, a German man of Turkish origin, had an appointment at the centre, where his three-month-old child was living with the mother.
Police also arrested a 65-year-old woman who “has a close relationship with the family of the perpetrator.” The alleged accomplice drove a getaway vehicle.
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German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier expressed his deep shock at “the extent of violence in a place that is meant to provide protection.”
The incident marks another multi-people shooting in Germany this year. In January, a family dispute in a Tiergarten apartment in Berlin resulted in four people being wounded by gunfire.
In February, there was a murder-suicide episode in Strullendorf, Bavaria, where a man shot and killed his wife and two children before turning the gun on himself.
A gunman wielding an automatic weapon killed six people and barricaded himself inside a supermarket with hostages in the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, on Saturday, before he was shot and killed by police, authorities said.
At least 14 people were wounded and taken to hospital.
The 58-year-old attacker was not named by police, but Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said he was born in Russia, as authorities worked to piece together a motive for the violence.
The mass shooting — unheard of in wartime Kyiv following Russia’s all-out invasion of Ukraine in 2022 — took place in a busy central district of the city, outside an apartment block and a nearby shopping center, leaving bodies on a crowded street as bystanders fled for safety.
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An Associated Press reporter at the scene saw victims’ bodies in the street covered with emergency blankets before they were taken away.
“The assailant has been neutralized. He had taken hostages and, tragically, killed one of them. He also murdered four people on the street. Another woman died in the hospital due to severe injuries,” Zelenskyy said.
“It has been established that the attacker set fire to an apartment before taking to the streets with a weapon,” Zelenskyy said in a video posted online. “He had a prior criminal record, had lived in the Donetsk region (in eastern Ukraine) for a long period, and was born in Russia.”
Ukraine’s special tactical police units stormed the convenience store after attempts to contact the gunman with a negotiator failed, Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko said.
The hostages were supermarket customers and staff.
“We tried to persuade him, knowing that there was likely a wounded person inside. We even offered to bring in tourniquets to stop the bleeding, but he did not respond,” Klymenko said. “Consequently, the order was given to neutralize him.”
