21 Feb 2020

Gunman kills ten in Germany

From Morning Report, 7:20 am on 21 February 2020

The German town of Hanau has woken up to the aftermath of a gunman's attack which left ten people dead.

Authorities are treating it as a terrorist attack and say the gunman, who shot himself after also killing his mother at his home, was a suspected far-right extremist.

The attacks took place at two shisa bars - places where people share communal pipes of flavoured tobacco. The majority of the victims were of Turkish origin.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel denounced the attack and the racism behind it French President Emmanuel Macron said: "Immense sadness and my full support for Germany in the face of this tragic attack... I stand with Chancellor Merkel in this fight for our values and the protection of our democracies"

In a tweet, the Turkish presidential spokesman Ibrahim Kalin called for a full German investigation, writing "racism is a collective cancer".

German correspondent Thomas Sparrow speaks to Susie Ferguson.