A manhunt is under way after an Italian woman was killed and five other people were wounded at a shooting at a rave in northern Switzerland.
The shooting took place in the early hours of Sunday morning at a racecourse in the canton of Aargau, west of Zurich.
Police have confirmed that the victim of the shooting was a 22-year-old woman from Italy. A second woman and four men, aged from 24 to 27, are in hospital with injuries, some of them serious.
Swiss police said: “According to initial findings, the overnight shooting at Aarauer Schachen claimed one life and left five people injured, some of them seriously.”
Italy’s foreign ministry said it was sending embassy officials to the scene of the incident near Zurich “to closely follow the investigation”.
Ignazio Cassis, the Swiss foreign minister, had called his Italian counterpart Antonio Tajani to send his condolences, the statement said.
Police officers secure the area behind a poster for the rave – AFP
The attackers have not been captured, and a major police operation is under way at the racecourse where the rave was being held.
Police said the motive and exact circumstances of the shooting, which was reported to have happened at about 2.30am local time (1.30am UK time), were not yet known.
Blick, the Swiss newspaper, reported that it had obtained video from the event in which “repeated gunfire” could be heard.
A 34-year-old witness who asked for anonymity told Reuters that he heard shots shortly after the music stopped at 2.30am, which he initially mistook for fireworks.
Some people took cover behind a DJ booth, while one woman hid behind a refrigerator but was hit in the back by a bullet and died during 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.”
Credit: Social Media
Festival organisers had expected about 3,500 partygoers at the event, which featured DJs from around the world.
All of the victims are residents of Switzerland, police said. They did not release their names in line with Swiss privacy rules.
Police in Freiburg, in neighbouring Germany, also took part in search efforts for the suspect, the German news agency dpa reported.
Blick reported that the shooting took place after the event ended. Police later took all remaining visitors to a nearby gym.
The Aargau Racing Club, which runs the racecourse, expressed its shock at the shooting.
“We extend our deepest sympathy to all those affected and their families, who are facing this difficult and trying situation,” it said on its website. “We would like to thank the emergency responders and all others involved who worked professionally and with dedication on the scene.”
Swiss DJ Tekibo, who performed at the rave, wrote on Instagram that “what happened at Aarauer rave is absolutely heartbreaking”.
“Techno and raves are supposed to be a place for freedom and safety, never a place where something like this happens,” he added.
Aarau has about 22,300 residents. It is about 18 miles south of the German border.
Shootings are rare in the Alpine nation, despite its long tradition of gun ownership.
The last major shooting occurred in 2001, when 14 members of the parliament and local government of the canton of Zug, near Lucerne, were killed by a gunman who then took his own life.