Breaking: Five people are dead after a shooting in northern Germany

Mon 29 Jun 2026 at 10:16pm

Mon 29 Jun 2026 at 10:16pm

In short:

Five people are dead after a shooting in the northern German town of Stade.

Police have arrested two people and said the motive for the shooting is unclear.

What's next?

Authorities are conducting a major operation in an area outside the town centre but say there is no wider danger to the public.

Five people were shot dead at a youth welfare centre in the northern German town of State, police said, in one of the country's deadliest mass shootings in years.

Two people have been arrested, police have said.

"Homicides involving multiple victims occurred at a youth welfare facility in the city," police said.

"Five people were fatally injured and additional individuals sustained injuries."

The motive is currently unclear, they added.

Police said they were conducting a major operation in an area outside the town centre.

"We ask you to leave the area and give it a wide berth for your own safety," they said in a post on X.

Images showed a large contingent of police and ambulances gathered on a cobble-stoned street in Stade while helicopters hovered overhead.

Those killed were all adults, police said, and it was unclear how many were injured.

Police said the shooting took place in the facility on Dankersstrasse, a street south of the town centre.

They said that there was no danger to the public.

Two suspects were arrested, one of whom is believed to have fired the shots.

Police said they were working to establish the background to the shooting and what exactly happened.

Germany has some of Europe's strictest gun laws — they require anyone under 25 to pass a psychiatric exam before applying for a gun licence — and mass shootings are relatively rare.

But they occur from time to time, and Monday's was among the deadliest in recent times.

In February 2020, a far-right extremist shot dead nine people and wounded five others in the central German city of Hanau.

In March 2023 a disgruntled former Jehovah's Witness member shot dead six people from the Christian group's congregation in the German city of Hamburg, before turning the gun on himself.

In May 2022 a 21-year-old gunman opened fire at a secondary school in northern Germany, badly injuring a female member of staff before being arrested.

Reuters/AFP