Eight people died Thursday night after a shooting at a Jehovah’s Witnesses event building, including the gunman, police said Friday morning.

“Eight people were fatally injured, including the suspected perpetrator”, Hamburg police said in a statement, adding that several were injured, “some seriously.”

There is currently no official information on the possible motive of the attacker, according to the Guardian website, however, according to the German magazine Der Spiegel, it is believed that he was a former member of their community. The attacker was aged between 30 and 40 and was not known to authorities as an extremist, the German paper said, citing unnamed sources. Der Spiegel also clarifies that the attacker was armed with a pistol.

A spokesperson for the Hamburg police was unable to confirm this information and stated that there will be a press conference scheduled at 1:00 PM Greek time.

The German Chancellor, Olaf Scholz, former mayor of Hamburg, described the massacre as an “act of violence”. The Jehovah’s Witness community in Germany said its members were targeted in a “horrific attack”. David Semonian, a spokesman for the US-based Jehovah’s Witnesses, said members are “universally grieving the victims of this traumatic event”.

Germany

Police officers from a specialized armed unit happened to be near the scene when the shootings took place, local media reported. However, once they arrived they found several people seriously injured and some dead. “They then heard a shot from above, went upstairs and found one more person,” a police spokesman said.

An unnamed witness reported to local media that he heard gunshots. “There were 12 shots in a row … then we saw people being carried away in black bags,” he said.