By Romina Amato and John Revill
AARAU, Switzerland, Aug 30 (Reuters) – A 22-year-old woman has been killed and five people injured, one seriously, in a shooting overnight at a rave in the Swiss town of Aarau which local police said could have been an act of terrorism.
Local police said all victims are residents of Switzerland and in their 20s. Italy’s foreign ministry said Swiss authorities had informed them that an Italian woman had died, and Italy offered its support with the investigation.
Swiss President Guy Parmelin offered condolences to the family of the victim. “In these difficult hours, my full sympathy goes to all people affected by this tragic event,” he said on social media.
A manhunt is underway and large areas of the town have been cordoned off, police said, appealing to the public for any images of the incident.
But police admitted that they were at the early stages of the investigation, and that they did not yet know how many attackers there were, nor their motives.
“The end is not in sight,” Aargau’s Police Commander Michael Leupold told reporters.
“Where an active shooter is firing into a crowd of thousands of people at an event, it’s perfectly clear that we consider terrorism as a motive,” he said, adding that investigators were also considering a mass shooting or an unknown criminal motive for the attack.
“We are treating all three possibilities as equally likely.”
HIDING BEHIND THE DJ BOOTH
A 34-year-old witness who asked for anonymity told Reuters he heard shots shortly after the music stopped at 2:30 a.m. (0030 GMT) on Sunday, which he initially mistook for fireworks.
Some took cover behind a DJ booth and one woman hid behind a refrigerator, but was hit in the back by a bullet and bled to death despite efforts to revive her, he said.
“It’s just incredibly tragic. She was young,” he told Reuters. “That something like this could happen in Aarau, at a local event, is simply unimaginable. I still can’t really process it.”
Police said a 22-year-old woman had died from her injuries at the scene and that one other person was seriously injured, but not in a life-threatening situation.
CONVOYS AND ARMOURED VEHICLES
Police have increased their presence beyond the town — about 50 km west of Zurich and 30 km south of the German border — as a precaution, although police spokesperson Bernhard Graser said there were indications the shooter or shooters were no longer in the immediate area.
“But (we) still have a lot of police here in the area, in the town of Aarau, in the whole state (canton) to make sure that we could get them if they’re still around,” he said.
“Currently the extensive manhunt is running tirelessly throughout Switzerland.”
Reuters footage showed armed officers patrolling the area, police convoys moving through the streets, and armoured vehicles parked near the crime scene.
Cartridges found at the crime scene indicated two calibres of bullets, possibly from a pistol and a second, larger weapon, potentially an assault rifle or machine gun, police said.
The organisers’ website advertised the event as a techno party at a covered horse racetrack, with 3,500 people expected to attend.
Organisers said they were shocked and heartbroken by the incident.
“A rave should always be a place of joy and love, never a place where people are killed, injured, or left in fear,” they said.
Switzerland has one of the highest rates of gun ownership in Europe, although violent shootings are rare and it approved tighter gun control rules in 2019.
(Additional reporting by Angelo Amante in Rome and James Mackenzie in Berlin; Additional reporting and writing by Emma Farge; Editing by Christina Fincher, Alexandra Hudson and Jan Harvey)
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