Swiss police were searching on Sunday for at least one gunman who opened fire at a techno rave in the northern town of Aarau, killing a young Italian woman and wounding five other people, in one of the rare shootings of its kind in the Alpine nation.
Aargau Cantonal Police said the shooting occurred around 2:30 a.m. local time at the Schachen horse racing track, where the annual “Aarauer Rave” was being held, drawing roughly 3,500 attendees from Saturday afternoon into Sunday morning.
Victims
A 22-year-old woman died at the scene. Italy’s foreign ministry confirmed the victim was Italian, and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni identified her as Maria Spinelli, offering condolences over her death. Four men and one woman, aged 24 to 27, were hospitalized with injuries ranging from minor to serious. Police said all of the injured were Swiss residents.
Investigation
Police spokesman Bernhard Graser said investigators had not yet identified the attacker or attackers, and the motive and precise circumstances of the shooting remained unclear. The area around the venue was cordoned off, with armed officers deployed at the scene, the local railway station, and along a highway up to 30 km away. Police in nearby Freiburg, Germany, also assisted in the search, according to German news agency dpa.
Context
The shooting is unusual for Switzerland, which has a long tradition of civilian gun ownership tied to its militia-based army but has seen few mass shootings. The last major attack of this kind occurred in 2001, when a gunman killed 14 members of the Zug cantonal parliament and government before killing himself. According to the Small Arms Survey research center, Switzerland ranks 16th globally in firearms per capita, with more than 2.3 million civilian-owned guns as of 2017.
