An 11-year-old girl was fatally shot while playing in the garden of her home in Brittany, western France, following a long-running dispute between two neighbours.

French media reported that the girl was of British origin, but a spokesman for the British embassy in Paris did not immediately respond to a request for comment. British media reported that London is offering help to a British family in France.

The family of the 11-year-old girl was having a barbecue in the garden of their home on Saturday night in the small village of Saint-Herbaud, near Quiber, when a Dutch neighbor started shooting at them, the prosecutor’s office said.

The girl’s parents have been injured, with her father in critical condition. The couple’s other daughter, 8, was not injured but is in a state of shock. She was the one who ran to another neighbor’s house and informed about the incident.

“Initial evidence indicates that the victims’ neighbor, a 71-year-old Dutch pensioner, suddenly appeared with a gun and fired at the victims several times (…) before returning home with his wife,” the Kiber prosecutor’s office noted.

The perpetrator was initially locked in his home, but then surrendered to the police and was arrested together with his wife.

The prosecutor said that the motive of the attacker was not clear at the moment, but added that the two families had a long-standing dispute over a piece of land that was adjacent to their properties.

The family lived in this village for years.